It is managed by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

The hospital has its origins in a facility built to treat wounded soldiers during the Second World War.

It was designed by Jonathan Bailey Associates and built by Bovis Lend Lease[4] at a cost of £54 million.

[5] It was officially opened by Tony Blair, Prime Minister, in January 2004.

[6] In June 2014, the Trust announced that it had borrowed sufficient funds from Northumberland County Council at a low rate of interest to pay off the consortium who had developed the hospital and buy itself out of the PFI contract.