King's Health Partners Neurosciences brings together world-class research, education and clinical practice across the partnership to drive improved holistic outcomes for patients living with a wide range of neurological conditions.
Collectively we provide a comprehensive clinical neurosciences service, which is one of the largest in the country with many excellent outcomes. Our university activity is based in the second largest neuroscience division in the UK.
We house nationally and internationally accredited centres of excellence for a range of different sub-specialties, recognising the care we offer as well as research. Our large neuroscience research community is based alongside a world-leading psychiatry and psychology environment, with extensive collaborations taking place. Our leading research relates to the entire lifespan, from earliest embryonic development to late life neurodegeneration, and our Clinical Academic Partnership has access to a large and representative patient population and large collections of patient samples, such as DNA, living cell lines and post-mortem brains.
We bring together basic scientists, who seek to understand the nervous system and how it functions, clinical academics, who operate in both clinical and scientific environments, and staff working in our hospitals and communities. This provides a clear line of sight between basic science and improved outcomes for people with neurological conditions.
Education and training underpin all we do, and we ensure discoveries made in our laboratories today are taught in classrooms as quickly as possible.
By harnessing our collective strengths, we aim to drive improved holistic outcomes and value for patients with neurological conditions using an integrated clinical and academic approach.
We seek to establish ourselves as a world-leading centre for the translation of neurosciences research, building on our assets and strengths in basic science, and a system leader, driving excellence of care and equity for patients with neurological conditions across pathways in south east London, Kent and beyond.
King’s Health Partners Neurosciences’ work focuses on a number of areas and objectives. Building our existing strengths, our aim is to:
Create a world-leading system for neurological recovery across physical and psychological domains, providing the best clinical care for our patients and promoting their wellbeing. This includes taking both a personalised health and a population health focus.
Be a world-leading centre for translational neuroscience By building on our collective strengths in basic science and using our research infrastructure, we will grow our cutting-edge research with a strong focus on translation. We will build on our pipeline of first-in-human trials and develop future research leaders in this area. We will drive the translation of research into new diagnostics and treatments.
Be the leading centre in the UK for education and training using our expertise for local, regional, national and international benefit through a comprehensive neurosciences educational offering for patients, carers, scientists and clinicians.
We are pioneering the development of new digitally enabled pathways of care and data science, to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients, and identify areas of further research and innovation.
As neurological conditions relate to the brain and nervous system, the interaction between physical neurological and neuropsychological needs are complex and encompass cognitive, emotional, behavioural and social needs. Providing accurate diagnosis and effective treatment can be challenging.
There are established integrated services in stroke and neurorehabilitation which address both mind and body and we want to be at the forefront in addressing patient needs holistically for other conditions. We will continue to enhance the assessment, diagnosis and management of the emotional, cognitive and mental health needs of our patients, both through research and innovation in clinical practice.
As part of this work, we are progressing research to assess the mental health needs of young people with epilepsy.
Building on our pilot work, we now run an extended multi-disciplinary team model which includes neuropsychiatry, for patients with multiple sclerosis.
We receive referrals from a wide geographical area, and so we are working with other providers, so that the benefits extend beyond King’s Health Partners. We ensure a strong patient voice when planning and implementing projects through our patient advisory group. We also work with family members, carers and link closely with charities to ensure that issues which are meaningful to patients help drive our programme of work.
King’s Health Partners Neurosciences comprises over 1,000 staff who provide clinical services, education and research.
Prof Mark Richardson, Joint Director
Mark is jointly responsible for delivering King’s Health Partners Neurosciences’ strategic vision and its implementation. He is also the Head, School of Neuroscience, which forms part of the world-renowned Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience within King’s College London. His research focuses on individuals with epilepsy and the reasons why seizures start.
Mark is also a practicing neurologist and regularly holds epilepsy clinics at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Jozef Jarosz, Joint Director
Jozef co-leads on delivering King’s Health Partners Neurosciences’ vision and strategic plan to ensure we continue to improve outcomes locally, regionally, nationally and globally for those with neurological conditions.
Jozef is a leading consultant neuroradiologist and former clinical director of the Regional Neurosciences Centre at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Karen Larcombe, Programme Director
Karen leads King’s Health Partners Neurosciences’ programme team. She has worked for the NHS for 30 years in operational management, strategic development and delivery as well as programme management roles. This includes running complex, large scale change programmes across organisational boundaries to improve services and outcomes for patients.
The programme board meets bi-monthly. Its membership is comprised of senior representation from across King’s Health Partners and is responsible for driving King’s Health Partners Neurosciences’ strategic ambitions and maximising the impact of the partnership. The programme board provides high-level strategic oversight and is informed by our leadership group, which comprises key internal stakeholders across neurosciences.
The programme board is accountable to our partner organisations and the King’s Health Partners Executive.
The South London Neurosciences Patient Community Advisory Group, which was developed to ensure that there is a strong patient and carer voice in our work, also informs the programme’s work.
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