Old soldiers' home Old soldiers' home An old soldiers' home is a military veteran's retirement home, nursing home, or hospital, or sometimes even an institution for the care of the widows and orphans of a nation's soldiers, sailors, and marines, etc. In the United Kingdom the Royal Hospital Chelsea was established by King Charles II in 1682 as a retreat for veterans. The provision of a hostel rather than the payment of pensions was inspired by Les Invalides in Paris. The Royal Hospital Chelsea, often called simply Chelsea Hospital, is a retirement home and nursing home for some 300 veterans of the British
Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability when it became the Royal Hospital and Home, Putney, and again, in 1995, to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability - a name that better reflected its work. In 1985, the RHN opened the UK’s first dedicated Brain Injury Unit, and in 1987, it launched the Vegetative State Unit, the only one of its kind in the UK. The country’s first Transitional Rehabilitation Unit - a unit that helps people with acquired brain injuries rehabilitate to the extent that they have regained enough independence to return to life living in the community - was opened at the RHN in 1993. A