The hospital was founded by Henry Obre and John Woolcott, both surgeons at St John's Place in Lisson Grove as the St Marylebone Eye and Ear Institution in 1856.

[1] It moved to a larger facilities in Marylebone Road in 1860, and an out-patients department was opened by the Marquess of Ripon in 1904.

[1] It joined the National Health Service in 1948 and was renamed the Western Eye Hospital in 1993.

[2] The hospital operates a daily emergency department for ambulance and walk-in cases.

It treats a wide range of eye conditions from glaucoma, cataract, retinal tears, to wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of blindness.