Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) serves residents across Halton and Warrington boroughs. Services are provided at two hospital sites and various community locations.

Warrington Hospital provides emergency care, general medicine, surgery, cardiac care, stroke care, cancer care, maternity, paediatrics, radiology and support services like physiotherapy, microbiology, pathology, and pharmacy.

Halton Hospital in Runcorn specialises in elective and diagnostic care. It includes the Captain Sir Tom Moore Building and Nightingale Building, offering services including general surgery, urology, breast surgery, cancer care, chemotherapy, and outpatient care. The site is also home to the Delamere Macmillan Unit, Halton Clinical Research Unit, and Runcorn Urgent Treatment Centre.

Both hospitals offer outpatient clinics and diagnostic services to ensure patients can access care close to home. 

The Trust also delivers community-based services through hubs and mobile facilities, and also offers virtual options to improve access to quality care and reduce health inequalities.

All our hospital sites are smokefree and smoking is not allowed on any part of the grounds or buildings.

Our workforce of nearly 5,000 comprises more than 80 nationalities. We strive to be an equal, diverse and inclusive employer, which is recognised as a pioneer in its equality, diversity and inclusion work. We support a flexible first approach and welcome applications from those who like to work flexibly. The Trust is proud to have achieved numerous external accreditations and is working towards fully embedding the Anti-Racist Organisation Framework, recognising the importance of anti-racism in all that we do.

Our Trust in numbers

In 2024-25 we:

Served a population of approximately 342,000 across both Halton and Warrington boroughs
Employed around 5,000 staff comprising 79 nationalities
Delivered 2,473 babies in hospital and in the community
Delivered 59,474 procedures and stays
Delivered 109,928 individual new outpatients appointments each year (face to face and telephone)
Delivered 122,108 episodes of urgent/emergency care
Had an annual turnover of £365million.

Placement opportunities

Students at Warrington are grouped into pairs to ensure peer support. Each pair will have programmed activities including ward work, outpatient clinics and theatre sessions
Core teaching sessions are also delivered across the clinical placements. These include trust CBL tutorials, pharmacist tutorials and clinical skills teaching, simulation and Immediate Life Support
Third year medical students will rotate through a variety of different clinical areas and departments including children’s health, obstetrics and gynaecology, medicine and surgery
Fourth year medical students attend Warrington for Medicine C -Care of the Elderly. Rheumatology and Renal clinics are available
Fifth year students at Warrington will improve their confidence, knowledge and skills at Warrington as we prepare them to take up posts as Foundation trainee doctors at the end of the year. Warrington provides placements in Acute Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Acute Medicine as well as Critical Care/Anaesthetics
There are also SAMP (Special Advanced Medical Practice) blocks which the students select from a list available across the placement Trusts. Warrington currently offers SAMP placements in anaesthetics, breast surgery, cardiology, diabetes, elderly care, gastroenterology, O&G, ophthalmology, public health, radiology, ITU, paediatrics, paediatric emergency medicine and medical leadership
Warrington provides placements for the Pre-Foundation Assessment Block.

Clinical skills provision

The Trust provides a variety of opportunities to learn and practice your clinical skills for third, fourth and fifth year students. These include classroom based teaching sessions, featuring demonstrations and the opportunity to practice your skills.

Peer review marking for OSCE practice session, and high fidelity simulation scenarios, featuring technical and non-technical skills. Advice and help with getting DOPs signed off is also provided.

During third year, adult and paediatric basic life support training is provided. Fifth year covers Resuscitation Council (UK) Immediate Life Support. Fifth year students will also carry a bleep for part of your placement and will be bleeped to cardiac arrest calls and to simulated patients as part of its Bleep2 program. Attendance at cardiac arrest provides an introduction and awareness of the skills required to participate in a resuscitation attempt.

What's unique?

Warrington Hospital spans the border between Merseyside and Cheshire with a patch that serves some extremely deprived boroughs as well as relatively affluent area with rural and urban health challenges affecting our populations.

As a district hospital, there are a variety of different specialities for students to rotate through.

This small hospital has a more personal, community feel, with small cohorts of students.

The Trust have set up various programmes to enhance learning and placement experiences including:

Bleep 2
Simulation training and clinical skills drop-in sessions
Fortnightly catch-ups with Year Leads.

Student testimonial

I feel this has been a really good placement to begin my final year at university. I have been able to spend lots of time completing my DOPS and involving my technical skills. All of the staff have been really friendly and happy to give their time to help us. The chance to spend time with different members of the team also allowed me to understand the role of each. Being able to decide among the students where in the department they would like to attend allowed me to explore areas I felt I was lacking in. I think this is the biggest difference from previous years and being trusted to both explore and take advantage of new learning opportunities allows you to feel more part of the team. This thus means you can build a good rapport with staff.