Medway Maritime Hospital has 588 beds in 29 wards under five main departments: accident and emergency, adult medicine, surgery and anaesthetics, children and women, clinical support services.

[2] Under an ongoing and regularly updated NHS survey,[3] the quality of service is regarded as "fair", with 96% of patients waiting less than 18 weeks for treatment.

Building work began in 1900 and the new hospital, constructed of red bricks with stone dressings, was opened by King Edward VII on 26 July 1905.

Also linked to the corridor was a central kitchen and the main administrative block, which (as well as offices) contained admission and outpatient rooms, a museum and library, pathology labs and various other facilities.

[8] Behind the main hospital, directly to the north, was the laundry and engine room with its large combined water tower and chimney (which today acts as a local landmark over Gillingham and is a Grade II listed building).

[12] To the south was a large detached chapel (St Luke's Church)[13] and, built in a semi-circle around the southern edge of the site, a series of residences for the medical officers, nursing sisters and sick berth attendants.

In the north-west corner of the site, separated from the main hospital by a double fence, was a self-contained 'infectious division' with its own pavilion wards, kitchen and receiving/discharge blocks.

At the start of the war there were concerns about the safety of the hospital, due to its proximity to London and the Thames Estuary (not to mention being less than a mile away from Chatham's Royal Dockyard).

Preparations involved covering over 8,000 windows in the wards, departments and residences, plus 2,700 panes of glass in the main corridor, and the construction of underground shelters in the grounds.

[16] In December 1960 the Civil Lord of the Admiralty confirmed that RNH Chatham would cease to be used as a naval hospital on 1 April 1961 (the day after the dissolution of Nore Command),[17] whereupon it would be handed over to the Minister of Health.

[11] In the years following the transfer many of the original buildings were removed: by 1985 the chapel, the admin block, the kitchen, the dispensary, the entire infectious division and four of the main pavilion wards had all been demolished.