About Us

Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) was formed in 1752. It had 12 beds and began in a small house in the city centre. To find out more about our history click here.

We are now a large teaching hospital for Manchester University's Medical School, and a specialist regional centre for kidney and pancreas transplants, haematology and sickle cell disease. Our Heart Centre is a major provider of cardiac services in the region, specialising in cardiothoracic surgery and cardiology.

The Accident & Emergency Department sees around 145,000 patients each year.

We are proud to boast many medical breakthroughs, including:

• Using 3D technology to perform keyhole urology surgery
• Using handheld robotic device for renal and urology surgery
• Becoming internally recognised in the development of surgery for Encapsulating Peritoneal Sclerosis
• Reaching 1000 patients to benefit from remote cardiac device monitoring
• Being the first centre in the world to implant a Bonebridge Hearing Device and activating it on the same day
• The first in the UK to perform 1000 cochlear implants procedures. 

The last few years have seen big developments here.  A number of our wards and clinics, as well as the renal dialysis unit were moved into new accommodation in 2007 and 2009.  More recently, we have seen a £25 million project to redevelop the Critical Care Facilities, which will provide 52 state-of -the-art Critical Care bed spaces.

In October 2012, we launched our very first Tweetathon from the Accident & Emergency department. The Communications team, assisted by Dr Rick Body and Professor Simon Carley, posted over 100 tweets throughout the 12 hour period.  Our tweets reached more than 18,000 Twitter accounts and the number of people following our Twitter account @CMFTNHS rose by over 600 in the 24 hours.  All tweets throughout the day were published live on the Manchester Evening News website.

We have also been involved in a number of documentaries aired on BBC Television. One of these was an entire series looking at the amazing work that goes on behind the scenes at the Manchester Centre for Sexual Health. This series saw a great response on social networking sites such as Twitter and promoted the services that the centre provides to the community on a daily basis.

The Renal Transplant team was also involved with an organ donation awareness week hosted by ITV, with filming taking place in the unit as well as interviews with our Transplant Co-ordinator, who is also raising awareness for organ donations in the South Asian Community.