KING’S HEALTH PARTNERS — PIONEERING BETTER HEALTH FOR ALL

‘High Quality Care for All’ was published in 2008 and presents the vision of the NHS over the next 10 years. It sets out the Department of Health’s aims to improve the quality of health care for people in the UK and beyond. Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs) have an important part to play in realising these aims. King’s Health Partners is one of the country’s first accredited AHSCs and will deliver better physical and mental health for all.

Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs)

The 10-year vision for the NHS sets a foundation for a health service that empowers staff and gives patients choice. It ensures that health care will be personalised and fair, include the most effective treatments within a safe system and help patients to stay healthy. As part of this, the government will endorse Academic Health Science Centres in England. 

Academic Health Science Centres are the research and healthcare structure adopted by many world-leading academic institutions and hospitals. The structure encourages integrated working practices to increase co-operation and focus and combines basic and translational healthcare research, clinical care and education to pioneer changes and improvements in health care.

“Academic Health Science Centres will make an important contribution to improving the quality of care patients receive in this country and globally,” said Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health.

At the end of 2008, the Department of Health launched an accreditation process to recognise excellent AHSC partnerships. Accreditation distinguishes the university and NHS partnerships that are best able to realise the synergies between research, education and health services to deliver direct clinical benefits to patients. In March 2009, King’s Health Partners became one of the country’s first accredited AHSCs.

An AHSC at the heart of a world city

King’s Health Partners is a strategic alliance that draws on world-leading expertise in both physical and mental health care, a broad programme of biomedical research and a wide portfolio of education and training. It comprises King's College London and three NHS Foundation Trusts — Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley. The partnership includes seven hospitals and over 150 community-based services. It sees 2 million patients each year, has 25,000 employees and 19,500 students and has a £2bn annual turnover.

The partner institutions serve a wide catchment area across seven south-east London boroughs: Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Croydon, Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich. These boroughs are home to around a quarter of London’s population. It is one of the most ethnically, socially and economically diverse populations in London and has some of the poorest health indicators in the country, including higher than average rates of early death from heart disease and cancer. King’s Health partners aims to advance the health and well-being of this population by integrating world-class research, care and teaching.

Its mission is to:

• Translate research more rapidly into clinical practice and effectively disseminate these advances through education and training
• Harness the power of discovery science to transform the nature of health care by moving from treatment towards population screening and disease prevention
• Recognise the special needs and inequalities in health among the local population and address these through earlier intervention and personalised medicine as well as help local people to maintain, improve and enhance their health.

A strategy to ensure better health for all

King’s Health Partners has developed a seven-point research strategy focussed on addressing the health needs of its patients. And, because of its uniquely diverse patient base, it has a global reach — advances in understanding disease processes or therapy within particular ethnic groups will have immediate global application.

• Kings Health Partners has an international reputation for excellence in research and clinical service areas, including mental health and neuroscience, cardiovascular disease, asthma allergy and environmental health, oral disease and dentistry and transplantation and dermatology.
• It continues to develop areas of emerging strength and strategic importance to the health of the local population, such as diabetes, obesity and healthy living, cancer and palliative care and musculoskeletal connective-tissue disease (including arthritis).
• To accelerate translation of new innovations into benefits for patients King’s Health Partners is developing a growing number of core research facilities and partnerships with industry.
• All activities within the partnership are underpinned with high-quality health services research and evaluation.
• King’s Health Partners focuses research along the entire patient pathway to include primary care community-health services and ill-health prevention.
• The partnership incorporates a wealth of expertise in the social sciences and humanities related to health care to evaluate the societal impact of advances in health technologies and inform policy decisions.
• And King’s Health Partners aims to make an impact on global health by extending existing global research networks and bringing improvements to health care world-wide.

“By joining together research, innovation and evaluation, a virtuous circle is formed,” explained Professor Robert Lechler, Vice Principal (Health), King’s College London and Interim Director of King’s Health Partners. “This allows us to deliver real improvements for all partners.”

Pioneering better health for all

King’s Health Partners is one of the world’s leading centres for basic, translational and clinical research. Now with AHSC accreditation, it will attract and develop the best researchers and healthcare professionals and translate pioneering research into new standards of health care for people in London and around the world.