It is managed by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and is the largest general hospital in the United Kingdom.

The hospital has its origins in the Belfast Union Workhouse and infirmary on the Lisburn Road which was designed by Charles Lanyon and opened on 1 January 1841.

[4] Dr. Thomas Andrews, who qualified as a doctor in Edinburgh in 1835, was appointed by the Guardians at the age of 26 to work with the growing patient population and paid him £60 per annum.

This decision meant reduced bed numbers in the main Belfast General Hospital but that the amount of surgery now done there increased.

Shortly after she was appointed, the Guardians approved a uniform for the paid nurses, and a distinctive apron for the unpaid female attendants.

One of the trees created from the seeds, in the grounds of Erskine House, became too large to transplant to the tower building and was left in place.

[13] In April 2020, due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the tower block was designated one of the UK's Nightingale Hospitals.