A word from the President

To operate a human-scale hospital (with a little over 260 beds) with two separate sites (Kléber and Barbès) promoting the secular values of its founders yet constantly adapting to medical developments responding to the new health issues that modern society now has to confront. These were and remain the ambitions of the directors of the “Hôpital Franco-Britannique” and its medical, nursing and administrative staff.

The IHFB is the fruit of the merger (in 2008) of two establishments, both located in Levallois-Perret: the Hôpital Notre Dame du Perpétuel Secours, along with the Œuvre baring the same name (founded in 1885) and the Hertford British Hospital, founded in 1879 by Sir Richard Wallace. The Œuvre du Perpétuel Secours was recognised as a valued public service in 1872 and has remained so ever since. Over the years its status has evolved: health assurance authorisation in 1930, recognised by the Social Security in 1947, then admitted into the Public Hospital Service in 1977. It currently has the status of a “Private Public Service Healthcare Establishment”. It applies the treatment and hospital fees that are defined by the Social Security (without excess fees) and its activities are directed and supported by the Ministry of Health’s Regional Health Agency, although does not affect its private nature. Its name also indicates its ambition, inherited from the HBHC, to provide a health service for the Paris region’s English speaking communities.

This hospital, originally destined to answer the needs of the population of Levallois-Perret and its immediate surroundings, is now an establishment which, while maintaining all of the original functions at the origins of its foundation and subsequent development such as its reputed maternity ward, also seeks to promote specialisations related to those illnesses which most affect modern life. Such as the Cancerology centre (for which a building was constructed in 2012 to house a Radiotherapy Unit equipped the latest technology and run by practitioners from the Hartmann Centre in Neuilly sur Seine) and the Geriatrics Unit. In addition to this the Emergency Ward, which treats more than 50,000 cases per year, has received new facilities better suited to its growth and benefiting the local population which now quite naturally extends well beyond Levallois itself.

An ambitious project to combine all of the hospital’s activities at a single site on rue Kléber and thus improve its operational and financial efficiency and effectiveness is symbolic of the institution’s constantly evolving ambition and dynamic.

All of this has been achieved or is being achieved with a constant desire to maintain the hospital’s image as it has been built up over the last century and a half: that of a Hospital that uses technical progress to constantly increase its capacity to provide solutions to Public Health needs and respond to the needs of a population with a legitimate desire to receive care and treatment based on respect and consideration for patients and the provision of effective treatment. Consequently we have made the word “care” our guiding concept in our overall approach.