Established in 1729, The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (aka "The Royal" or "The Infirmary") is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. Today it occupies a large, sprawling site in Little France, to the south east of the city, and is one of Scotland's busiest hospitals. It is also an important site for clinical medicine teaching at what is Edinburgh's BioQuarter, with the University of Edinburgh.
The hospital has a 24-hour accident and emergency department, and provides a full range of acute medical and surgical services for patients from across Lothian and specialist services for people from across the south east of Scotland and beyond.
The hospital moved from its central, 20-acre location in Lauriston Place in Edinburgh to the 900-bed site in 2003 in the outlying area of Little France in the South East of the city. The private-enterprise Quartermile project saw the area developed with new housing, retail, leisure, and hotel properties and the new hospital developed on a largely green-field site through a Private Finance Initiative.
Getting to the hospital is by car or by bus, with a number of buses connecting the Royal Infirmary with different parts of the city.