13 December 2018

Prof Sir Robert Lechler, Executive Director, King's Health Partners, reflects back on the highlights of 2018. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69IFbdieFII&feature=youtu.be   

2018 has been an eventful and celebratory year across our partnership. Together we’ve celebrated 70 years of the NHS and King’s College London marked the centenary of Cicely Saunders’s birth and the pioneering work she began in end of life care. 

As ever, our successes are built on the efforts of our dedicated staff and students. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your work over this past year.  

Our commitment to working in partnership has allowed us to make real progress towards delivering our ambitious objectives. Working together to improve the outcomes and experience of healthcare for our patients and population is more important now than ever before. As we continue to face unprecedented levels of demand, financial challenge, and an uncertain political climate, we will need to focus our partnership’s energies across the whole system. 

The leadership of King’s Health Partners remain fully committed to driving change in health, research and education, and to improving health outcomes through partnership working, locally and globally. Through working together, we combine our strengths to deliver high-impact-innovation and a world-class offer for the benefit of our patients, staff, students, and partners. 

There have been many highlights in 2018 that reflect this progress – here are just a few that I would like to remind you of: 

World-leading research 

  • In 2018 our partnership once again led the way in involving patients in research, with 38,000 patients taking part in clinical studies and all our partner trusts increasing their numbers of clinical trials 
  • New research awards totalling £180 million have been granted in the last year, an increase of 27% from 2017 
  • Having been awarded Centre status with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), we were participants in a successful bid to CRUK for major Centre status with University College London, Queen Mary University, and the Francis Crick Institute- the City of London Cancer Centre 
  • We received the world’s largest research grant ever given for a neurodevelopmental condition to increase our understanding of autism  
  • Our two linked Biomedical Research Centres continue to combine their significant expertise to bring together research and discovery in both mental and physical health 
  • We were one of six sites in the UK to win a Centre award from Innovate UK, bringing our strengths in artificial intelligence and imaging together with substantial investment from two major MedTech companies, Siemens and Medtronic 

Impact of joint working

  • Our Institutes and Networks programmes (Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Obesity and Endocrinology, Haematology, Neurosciences and Women and Children’s Health) are bringing colleagues together to improve patient outcomes, recovery and care, research and education 
  • The benefits of our joint working are already being realised in our integrated heart failure service, providing care ‘closer to home’ for blood cancer patients, and a new initiative that is transforming spinal neurosurgery  
  • Our joined-up work in informatics has connected some 15,000 care professionals across six boroughs in south east London to benefit almost two million people 
  • We received funding to make game-changing improvements in population health by harnessing data science at scale across the UK, through the One London Health Data Research UK programme 
  • The cross-partner Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences at King's College London celebrated its 20th anniversary. The collaboration now trains 20% of the UK’s dentists.  

A year of firsts in Mind & Body care  

  • We are the first organisation in the country to offer mind and body care to people living with blood cancer, the first organisation that includes acute trusts to sign-up to the Equally Well charter, and our Mind & Body Champions network celebrated their first birthday 
  • We have now screened almost 32,000 patients across almost 60 different clinics for signs of anxiety or depression alongside their physical health needs at our two acute trusts, and we continue to deliver joined-up mental and physical healthcare through a range of programmes 

Focusing on value 

  • Teams across our partnership are using Value Based Healthcare methodology to improve the care they provide to our patients and service users, work is currently prioritised in three local key areas, cardiovascular, orthopaedics and depression in older adults 
  • This year we published three new outcomes books and case studies highlighting examples of our work, including projects that have resulted in reduced admissions, cost savings and defining outcomes measurements that have been adopted internationally 
  • We are also working with national and local partners on the Vital 5, an innovative new approach to population health that could improve value and reduce health inequalities 

Education and training 

  • Currently, there are more than 80 King’s Health Partners kitemarked education materials available on our Learning Hub, and 9,550 users registered. A new-look, more accessible Learning Hub will be rolled-out in 2019 
  • Our international education and training team has developed a new PGCert in Advanced Medical Training aimed at international learners and offered in three medical specialties, including Children’s Health, Haematology and Women’s Health. The first students will start in September 2019 

And finally 

  • To the many individuals and teams from across our partnership who have been shortlisted for, won awards and been recognised during 2018 – congratulations to you all.  

2019 promises to be an exciting year for our Academic Health Sciences Centre. In May 2019 we look forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary with you at our Annual Conference, giving us a chance to reflect on a decade of ‘Pioneering better health for all’. This milestone presents an exciting opportunity to plan for the future, making the most of the benefits that King’s Health Partners will bring to patient and service outcomes with local partners and beyond. 

On behalf of all of us at King's Health Partners, I wish you and your families a happy and healthy festive season. 

Prof Sir Robert Lechler 

Executive Director, King's Health Partners 

View our Collaboration crackers - a collection of examples highlighting the fantastic ways our partnership has worked together in 2018.