Across the UK, there are approximately 1,148 hospitals that see more than 140,000 patients every day.
They provide key services including Accident & Emergency, inpatient and outpatient care, diagnostic procedures, maternity care and mental health support.
Hospitals play a very important role in the community, with a wide range of life-saving technologies, surgeries and diagnostic tools that are available to treat, diagnose and monitor patients across England, Scotland and Wales.
Healthcare Digital explores the top 10 biggest hospitals in the UK, ranked by their bed count.
10. St James's University Hospital
Location: Leeds, England
Bed count: 1,157
Founded: 1925
St James's University Hospital, popularly known as Jimmy's, is home to the Leeds Cancer Centre which provides specialist oncology services to Leeds and West Yorkshire.
Its further specialist services include hepatology, pathology and the cystic fibrosis unit.
The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust provides training and education for medical, nursing and dental students and works on innovative new treatments.
Its ambition is to become one of the greenest NHS Trusts in the UK, having reduced its carbon emissions by 33% since 2014.
9. Royal Derby Hospital
Location: Derby, England
Bed count: 1,159
Founded: 1927
Royal Derby Hospital features 35 operating theatres, 200 single en-suite rooms and 4-bed bays for patients on its wards.
It is a major teaching centre for the University of Nottingham medical school, including the graduate entry medical school at the Royal Derby site.
It provides a range of services around mental health and emotional wellbeing, supporting people with acute needs and common mental health problems.
The hospital provides support for people with drug and alcohol problems, helping people across the city of Derby and the county of Derbyshire.
8. Addenbrooke's Hospital
Location: Cambridge, England
Bed count: 1,165
Founded: 1766
Addenbrooke's Hospital is a designated academic health science centre and is home to the East of England's major trauma centre.
It operates as a tertiary referral centre for many specialities, including liver transplants, neurosurgery, bone marrow transplants and cleft lip and palate reconstruction.
It has 37 operating theatres, a neurosciences critical care unit, an adult, a paediatric and a neonatal intensive care service and several high-dependency areas.
7. Leicester Royal Infirmary
Location: Leicester, England
Bed count: 1,172
Founded: 1771
Leicester Royal Infirmary is one of three Leicester hospitals managed by the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.
It has an accident and emergency department, women's hospital, paediatrics, oncology and other areas of specialism.
The Trust has began construction on a new Urgent Treatment Centre at the Infirmary.
Richard Mitchell, Chief Executive of the Trust, says: "The start of these works marks an important step forward in improving healthcare services for our communities.
"This is real progress and I am grateful to everyone involved for helping us move closer to the hospitals our communities and colleagues deserve."
6. Royal Stoke University Hospital
Location: Stoke-on-Trent, England
Bed count: 1,180
Founded: 1804
Royal Stoke University Hospital is a teaching and research hospital in Staffordshire and is run by the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust.
It is the main teaching hospital for the Keele University School of Medicine, with the clinical undergraduate medical school and postgraduate medical school buildings in the grounds of the hospital.
It was rebuilt in 2012 as part of a £400m (US$542m) initiative to bring all hospital services in Stoke-on-Trent onto one campus site.
The hospital's specialty treatment areas include cardiovascular, neurosciences, metabolic, women's & children's, trauma and oncology.
5. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
Location: Birmingham, England
Bed count: 1,213
Founded: 2010
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe and the largest renal transplant programme in the UK.
It is a national specialist centre for liver, heart and lung transplantation, as well as cancer studies.
It has the largest single-floor critical care unit in the world, with 100 beds and it is the home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine for military personnel injured in conflict zones.
The hospital features six MRI scanners, five CT scanners, eight ultrasound rooms and five interventional radiology suites.
4. Royal London Hospital
Location: London, England
Bed count: 1,248
Founded: 1740
The Royal London Hospital is home to one of the largest children's hospitals in the UK and its rooftop helipad if the operating base for London's Air Ambulance.
It is one of the busiest trauma centres in the UK, with Barts and the London NHS Trust treating more than 1,500 injury patients every day across its five hospitals.
The hospital specialises in stroke an renal care, as well as trauma and emergency care.
It also has a specialist dental hospital, which provides orthodontics, restorative dentistry and oral surgery.
3. Queen's Medical Centre
Location: Nottingham, England
Bed count: 1,366
Founded: 1977
Queen's Medical Centre is a teaching hospital in Nottingham and is the largest major trauma centre in England.
It features an accident & emergency unit and is the main destination of the Lincolnshire & Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, the organisation that runs the hospital, is the largest employer in Nottinghamshire with more than 19,000 employees.
Its People First 2026-31 strategy involves its ambition to be outstanding in health outcomes and in patient and staff experience.
2. Queen Elizabeth University Hospital
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Bed count: 1,677
Founded: 2015
The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital comprises an adult hospital, a children's hospital and two major emergency departments, with one for adults and one for children.
At the time of its construction, it was Scotland's largest ever publicly funded NHS construction project, costing £842m (US$1.14bn) to build.
The adult hospital has 14 storeys and four wings, as well as a 500-seat hot food restaurant and a cafe.
The adult and children's hospitals and the laboratory buildings are home to a fleet of 26 automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which are portable robots that follow marked lines across the floor or magnets to move around.
They are used to carry supplies around the facilities, using dedicated lifts and a network of tunnels not accessible to the public.
1. Manchester Royal Infirmary
Location: Manchester, England
Bed count: 1,735
Founded: 1752
Manchester Royal Infirmary first opened in 1752 with only 12 beds.
It is home to many medical breakthroughs, including using 3D technology to perform keyhole urology surgery, using handheld robotic devices for renal and urology surgery and reaching 1,000 patients to benefit from remote cardiac device monitoring.
As well as having a Major Trauma Centre, the hospital is a regional and national centre for kidney and pancreas transplants, haematology, liver and pancreas surgery, rheumatology and HIV care.
More than 1,000 people have received life-saving diagnoses and treatment for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C in Greater Manchester, which is part of the city's commitment to end new transmissions of these diseases.
Dr Sohail Munshi, joint Chief Medical Officer at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, says: “The national NHS 10 Year Health Plan focuses on preventing ill health rather than just treating sickness, and this ambitious scheme does just that by enabling treatment, improving the quality of life and ultimately saving the lives of people across Greater Manchester."
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Executives
Richard Mitchell
Chief Executive Officer, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
Sohail Munshi
Joint Chief Medical Officer
