The hospital provided acute care with inpatient and outpatient facilities, orthopaedic, and neurosurgical services to patients.

[1] The Wakefield was one of the first private hospitals in Adelaide, operating from about 1883[1] or 1884 after being opened by Mrs Gardner, a widow with three young children.

Dr Gardner asked her to set up a hospital to nurse some of their patients, at a double storey house, formerly owned by the Sunter family, on Wakefield Street.

Way, Gardner and Anstey Giles sent patients to the hospital, and the first operation to remove a larynx in South Australia was performed there.

Mrs Gardner was matron, and she employed two nurses (including Seely, Greenwood, Mundy and Saltmarsh over the years)[2] and domestic staff.

[10] Alice Tibbits (1854–1932), regarded as a pioneer of nursing, took over the hospital in 1888 when Mrs Duncan was forced to retire owing to poor health.

She sold the hospital to her life-long friend Kate Hill who co-founded the South Australia branch of the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association in 1905.

[15] Kate Hill was head nurse at PHWS for around two years from 1889, before returning to her previous employer, the Adelaide Children's Hospital.

She enlarged the hospital,[2] buying three more cottages as well as the Adelaide College of Music Hall, which (being the quietest place) became the night nurses' sleeping quarters.

[21] However, after World War Two at the end of the 1940s, costs rose and despite increased revenue, profits dropped,[22] leading to its being put up for sale.

[42][39] The complex was acquired by the Pelligra Group for A$30 million in September 2020, "with plans to fit it out as a state of the art health and medical precinct", which would be leased out and might be suitable as an aged care facility.