The Dispensary was intended to relieve the overburdened Manchester Infirmary (MI), which was spending more money on the area than was received from it. A Dispensary on a similar model had opened at Chorlton-on-Medlock around 1825–1826 because the MI, which at that time was the only Mancunian medical institution, was unwilling to extend its services to that area due to lack of subscriptions. Another such Dispensary had opened in Salford in 1827 and thus that at Ancoats was the third in the Manchester area. The formation of these Dispensaries came at a time when there was an increasing debate among medical professionals and society more generally regarding the charitable model, partly because of concerns that it created a culture of dependency among the poor and partly because the growth of medical schools and universities, together with the influx of large numbers of medically qualified people who had previously been engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, was having a detrimental impact on medical incomes.