West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust has met its ambition after being granted status as a teaching hospital.

The trust says gaining 'teaching hospital' status reflects the "dedicated work" of many teams and individuals who have set the standard for "delivering high quality training, learning and education at all levels of the workforce".

Legally the trust is now known as West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, but it will keep its 'old' name and branding until April in order to focus demands of winter and managing Covid positive patients remain the top priorities.

Trust chief executive Christine Allen said: "Achieving 'teaching' status is testament to the brilliant work of our teams whose daily business is educating the next generation of doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals.

"Our skills in this area are well known to those we train and teach and our academic partner organisations but it will be great to see this reflected in our new title. As well as bringing this aspect of what we do to the attention of the wider community, the name change will boost recruitment and retention which is hugely beneficial to the patients we care for. We couldn’t be more delighted."

In addition to training medical students from University College London (UCL) and St George’s University, Grenada, the trust, which runs Watford General, St Albans City, and Hemel Hempstead hospitals, works in partnership with the universities of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire to train and educate a wide range of nursing and allied healthcare professionals.

Director of medical education Dr Ashley Reece said: "Achieving our ‘teaching hospital’ ambition has been a long time in development, and a journey with many twists and turns, but it is fantastic to have reached this point.

"We can be proud of our commitment to grow and develop with education, training, learning and teaching taking a prominent and obvious place in our identity."