In the late 1960s, work had begun on the development of the west side of the Hospital Centre site. First discussed 30 years earlier, the Maternity Hospital in Loveday Street was relocated to the Edgbaston site and opened to patients in 1968.

There was also a plan to bring paediatrics alongside obstetrics, by building a children’s hospital next to the 200-bed Maternity Hospital. Like so many times before, these plans were shelved, as was the planned underground rail service from the city centre. The main requirement thereafter became an enlarged radiotherapy department and a new laboratory block.

Unlike in North America, where a trend for high-rise hospitals had developed, the rule in Birmingham, much like in John Ash’s day, was for four stories. While this was regarded as economical, it was also intended to prevent the feeling of oppression created by having tall, cliff-like buildings of both sides of the road. Only the Dental Hospital was rebuilt according to the American model, at St Chad’s Queensway, and opened in 1966.

In the late 1960s, the hospital administration also announced that a small group of people in the medical school and hospital were discussing the introduction of an IBM 1440 electronic digital computer in order to improve efficiency.

While discussions surrounding this decision appear humorous from a modern perspective, it is worth considering how long the UHB managed without this technology. Despite offering some savings in clerical costs, the innovation revolutionised the storage, retrieval and analysis of hospital statistics.

Nevertheless, in the first years following this innovation, information was still laboriously entered into punch cards which were then fed into a computer. Other technological firsts were more medical in nature. These included the first cardiac pacemaker in the UK, which was fitted in 1960, and the first renal dialysis at the hospital, which staff undertook in 1974.

Though technology allowed staff to better manage its work, the patient population at the QE was no longer growing as quickly as in past decades. In 1970, the hospital still had only 633 beds, through which more than 13,000 patients passed. Though great in number, this was a 10% decline on figures published a decade earlier.

Outpatient numbers also halved and were insignificant in relation to the General Hospital, where 164,000 total outpatient attendances were recorded, compared with nearly 18,000 at the QE.

The average stay of patients was also in decline, totalling little more than 10 days. 70% were still residents of Birmingham or Warwickshire. In future, the work of the hospital would be measured in ways other than patient throughput.

In the 1980s and 90s, research and teaching would be central to the QE’s role in the region. Highlights from this period include the first renal and liver transplants, undertaken in 1980 and 1982 respectively; in the latter year, the hospital came under the control of the West Midlands Regional Health Authority.

Further work in the 1990s resulted in staff developing the split-liver technique, which allowed one liver to be transplanted into both an adult and child patient. This teaching role was further underlined in a subsequent name change in 1995, when the QE, along with Selly Oak Hospital, became part of the University Hospital NHS Trust.

The merger between the hospitals, while creating many possibilities, also brought new problems. Most noticeable was the division of services and staff over two sites approximately 1.5 miles apart.

By the 1990s, the buildings were also showing their age. Certain types of new equipment could not be introduced to the hospital given the size of rooms and floor strength. Maintaining patient privacy and infection control were also becoming more challenging.