Since its creation, King’s Health Partners has led the way in breaking down barriers to combine basic and translational health research, clinical care and education to create world-leading improvements in healthcare.

We are building on our five-year strategy - ‘Delivering better health for all through high impact innovation' (PDF) - by accelerating progress in three areas:

Interwoven through these priorities is a mind and body approach - integrating mental and physical health across everything we do, as well as addressing the inequalities in health outcomes experienced by people with mental illness.  

Impact Report - 2023/24

The partnership serves a population in south east London and beyond, which is among the most ethnically, socially and economically diverse in the world. The partnership is this year celebrating 15 years of improving patient care through research and innovation.

I am delighted to introduce this year’s impact report – an impressive summary of what we have accomplished together working in partnership. 

To highlight just a few achievements, we invested £14 million into cutting-edge translational medicine through our KHP Centre for Translational Medicine, launched the KHP Digital Health Hub to accelerate the use and benefits of digital health technologies, met with local communities to discuss the barriers and solutions surrounding health equity, and developed new models of care working with people with chronic pain through our Mind & Body programme. 

This impact report reflects the strength and commitment of Prof Richard Trembath’s leadership, who has stepped down this summer as Executive Director. I would like to express on behalf of all partners our thanks to Richard for his significant contribution to King’s Health Partners (KHP). Through his leadership, Richard has supported the development of the next generation of clinical academics, as well as front-line services during COVID-19, while driving forward the delivery of King’s Health Partners mission to improve patient care and health outcomes for all.

I am delighted to welcome Prof Graham Lord as our new Executive Director. King’s Health Partners has great potential in addressing the current challenges facing healthcare and shaping tomorrow’s health and life sciences. We will continue to accelerate translational research, foster greater collaboration, harness the power of emerging innovations and technologies, and support the next generation of health professionals and scientists.

This year marked King’s Health Partners’ fifteenth birthday. As we reflect on fifteen years of improving patient care, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone across the partnership for their exceptional contribution.

Rt Hon Professor Lord Kakkar KG KBE
Chairman, King’s Health Partners

I am honoured to be joining King’s Health Partners as Executive Director. I want to offer my sincere thanks to Prof Richard Trembath for his outstanding leadership of the partnership’s five-year plan to improve patient care and health outcomes.

This impact report reflects just a snapshot of the partnership’s triumphs under Prof Trembath’s direction – building on KHP’s foundational structure of clinical academic integration and a continued commitment to capacity building and training tomorrow’s academic leaders. Across KHP, Prof Trembath has overseen the development of research, education, and training opportunities – which are vitally important for the success of our healthcare system.

We all know healthcare systems around the world are under crippling and growing pressure, but we remain optimistic that with our combined expertise across the partnership, we can be bold in our plans for the 2030 strategy, which we will launch in Spring 2025. We will use the strategic development process as an opportunity to recalibrate, refocus, and deepen our impact, while keeping our goal of pioneering better health for all at the partnership’s heart.

To have the greatest impact, we must align the strategic direction of all our partners and identify new ways to deliver excellent healthcare – driven by research, discovery, and innovation – in a sustainable way. We must also work as an academic health system, joining forces to accelerate the translation of research into patient care. This will be transformational – helping us to deliver impact at pace and scale, and reduce the burden of health inequalities experienced by those living in south London and beyond.

At King’s Health Partners, our commitment to better health for all remains unwavering. I look forward to working closely with everyone within the partnership.

Prof Graham Lord
Executive Director, King’s Health Partners

Jump to a section:

  1. Involvement
  2. Integrating mental and physical health
  3. Personalised Health
  4. Digital Health and Data Sciences
  5. Population Health
  6. Building a learning community
Download a copy of the Impact Report 2023/24 (PDF)

Involvement

King’s Health Partners is committed to engaging with patient community programmes and widening public partnerships.

Researchers at King’s College London, supported by KHP Neurosciences, have developed a new approach to research study recruitment, called The King’s Model, to attract people from diverse backgrounds to participate in research, which has led to increased diversity in commercial and noncommercial studies.

KHP Haematology is developing innovative ways to involve people with sickle cell disease in research. The programme has been commissioned by Genomics England to provide case studies demonstrating what good advocacy means to people affected by sickle cell disease. This work strengthens the relationship with the sickle cell community and will help address the mistrust, lack of understanding, and inequity of access to clinical research.

The group has worked with The Baked Bean Company, a charity supporting people with learning disabilities, to create a public-friendly resource to explain KHP Haematology's purpose as a clinical academic partnership in improving the lives of people with haematological conditions and to enable involvement from local communities.

The Youth Empowerment Skills (YES) Programme is an award-winning three-day education programme for people aged 14-19 living with type 1 diabetes in south London. It has been co-developed by young people and co-delivered by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, youth workers, and peer educators. The KHP Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity team is working with the YES programme team to expand access to the programme beyond south London.

“I work with a variety of organisations across different sectors to create inclusive environments where everyone feels welcome, supported, and celebrated. Having a patient perspective is so important and great that the partnership recognise the need for that voice.”

— Lenna Cumberbatch, Patient Representative, KHP Haematology

“I really enjoy helping those receiving KHP’s services to give voice to their experiences and insights, for the benefit of both service users and providers across the partnership. Our members have a range of backgrounds, conditions, knowledge, and motivations which they bring to the meetings, each contributing different, but equally important, observations.”

— Sue Saville, Lay Chair, KHP Cardiovascular and Respiratory Partnership

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Integrating mental and physical health

Parity in mental and physical health

Addressing the mental health needs of those with physical conditions and addressing the physical health needs of those with mental health conditions dramatically improves quality of life.

In 2023 we saw:

  • 136,000 views from 65 pioneering mental health videos in Mind of the Matter series, created in a partnership worth £200k with YouTube;
  • 155 members from 20 different organisations joined the KHP Mind & Body Improvement Network;
  • a £4.5m National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) award to South London and Maudsley NHS FT for cutting-edge research equipment and technology so more patients and service users can take part in research;
  • 658 people joined 12 sessions on managing mental and physical health needs for people working in physical health settings.

This year, the Mental Health in Vital 5 Programme was launched to develop and scale routine screening of mental health for patients with long term conditions to enable early identification of, and support for, mental ill-health. The KHP Mind & Body team have found new ways of making their engagement activities successful, producing a toolkit to share their learning about effective patient and public involvement, and helping guide other healthcare project teams through the process.

Healthcare systems and services are often not designed to acknowledge and support the cultural and individual needs of marginalised groups. However, the Pain: Equality of Care and Support in the Community (PEACS) programme placed codesign at the centre and focused on what matters most to people. PEACS was established in response to people from black communities experiencing higher prevalence of chronic pain. By listening and learning in delivery, the programme has created and embedded an approach that responds directly to the needs of the local population. The programme supported 500 people in 2023.

Children and young people

The Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People, opening in 2025, will change the story on mental health and help transform the lives of children and young people. The centre will be home to the King’s Maudsley Partnership - a unique partnership between South London and Maudsley NHS FT and King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), with Maudsley Charity as its charity partner. Researchers and clinicians will work more closely together to find new ways to predict, prevent, and treat mental health disorders for children and young people, and maximise translation of research and evidence into improved services, locally but also nationally and globally.

Advancing knowledge of the human brain

“Alterations in brain development are at the root of many neurological and psychiatric conditions, from intellectual disability, to epilepsy, to psychosis. But we can only treat what we can understand. That’s why it’s critical we bring together all our resources to expand our understanding of the developing human brain.”

— Prof Oscar Marín, Director, King's College London Centre for Developmental Neurobiology

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Personalised Health

King’s Health Partners Centre for Translational Medicine

Bringing together the organisations of King’s Health Partners and generous funding from the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity, the Centre for Translational Medicine works in partnership to improve the health of people locally, nationally, and globally.

The centre accelerates research and innovation to improve the detection, prevention, and treatment of disease and aims to challenge existing health inequalities, combining outstanding clinical and scientific expertise to deliver excellent outcomes for patients. The centre is developing the next generation of clinical-academic leaders, skilled in delivering impactful translational biomedical research.

Impact

More than £14m has so far been invested in translational medicine across three funding schemes, with more than 30 awards, focusing on areas which tackle health inequalities and capacity building. These are Essentials for Translational Medicine, Postdoctoral and Predoctoral Clinical Research Excellence Fellowships, and the Translational Medicine Pilot Funding Scheme.

“We were delighted to see the diversity and breadth of applications, across a broad mix of diseases, methodologies, and partnerships, and are excited to see how this proposed research can contribute to improving health equity and improve outcomes for patients and our communities.”

— Prof Phil Newsome, Director, KHP Centre for Translational Medicine

Improving detection of fetal heart disease

Dr Thomas Day, Honorary Consultant Paediatric and Fetal Cardiologist, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, received a fellowship which will support him to continue his research to optimise the collaborative performance of the sonographer-AI team to improve detection of fetal heart disease on ultrasound, while continuing clinical work in hospital. 

NIRS Imaging Technology

Prof Katya Rubia, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurosciences, King’s College London, received an award from the KHP Centre for Translational Medicine to fund a post dedicated to NIRS (near-infrared spectroscopy) Imaging Technology. This is a portable, non-invasive imaging technology which monitors tissue oxygenation and is particularly suited for children. The technology will be based in the Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People at Denmark Hill.

Hypertension 

Dr Ryan McNally, Post-doctoral Research Associate and Pharmacist in the Department of Vascular Risk and Surgery, King's College London, proposed research for personalised medicine treatment for hypertension – known as the silent killer. Through the fellowship, he is exploring research treatments for high blood pressure and how tailoring medication to individuals can initiate the best treatment at an earlier stage.

Appointments

Prof Philip Newsome has been appointed as the first Director of the Centre for Translational Medicine. He is also senior Professor of Hepatology in the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences within the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, King’s College London, and the new Director for the Roger Williams Institute of Hepatology.

Prof Gráinne McAlonan, has been appointed as Director of the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), hosted by South London and Maudsley NHS FT in partnership with King's College London. Prof McAlonan is also clinical Professor of Translational Neuroscience, King’s College London, and a clinician in the National ADHD and Autism Service for Adults, South London and Maudsley NHS FT.

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Digital Health and Data Sciences

King’s Health Partners Digital Health Hub launched

King’s Health Partners is helping to unlock new treatments for those living in south east London and beyond through enabling biomedical, health and care AI research for both operational optimisation and patient care.

The Digital Health Hub was launched at the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE) in March 2024. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funded Hub is a multi-disciplinary resource enabling training, co-creation, translation, and acceleration of digital health technologies.

The Hub brings together expertise and representatives from across King’s College London, its partner NHS Trusts, patients, the public, and industry, to provide training, support, share knowledge, and create opportunities to promote UK digital health technologies.

Hub members are supported by infrastructure that will help take digital health technology from an idea to reality, leading to improved patient care and management, at an accelerated pace. Members can also create their own bespoke training experience in digital health with open access asynchronous resources.

Across the core pillars of training, co-creation, translation and acceleration, the Hub’s offerings help small, medium size enterprises, university spin-outs, clinicians, healthcare workers, patients, and researchers to take their technology through the development process.

Appointments

Prof Sebastien Ourselin, Professor of Healthcare Engineering and Head of the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, and Director of the KHP Digital Health Hub, has been appointed Director for Digital Health and Data Sciences at King's Health Partners.

“Integrating digital health across the partnership and the wider health system has the potential to further accelerate the discovery of new treatments, and helping people living in south east London receive faster access to care, diagnostic tools and medical technology.”

— Prof Sebastien Ourselin, Director for Digital Health and Data Science, King’s Health Partners

‘Game-changing’ electronic patient record 

New electronic patient record, Epic, officially launched in October to benefit patients and staff across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS FTs. 

The launch of Epic integrates hundreds of varied IT systems previously in use across both organisations into one single, electronic system, giving staff a complete overview of a person’s care, and freeing up more time to spend on patient care.

“The launch of Epic across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s has been years in the planning, and delivers the technology that our patients and staff truly deserve. I am delighted that they are now able to benefit from the new system, including our new patient app MyChart, and its potential to improve the care we provide.”

— Prof Ian Abbs, Chief Executive, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS FT

“Our staff deliver first-rate patient care every day, and with Epic, it won’t matter which hospital or community setting patients are treated in – staff will be able to access their information at the touch of a button. I am pleased that we now have a system in place that will make their working lives easier, and empower them to innovate for the benefit of patients.”

— Prof Clive Kay, Chief Executive, King’s College Hospital NHS FT

Using data and digital technology to support patient need

King’s Health Partners is integrating health data, accelerating the discovery of new treatments, and helping people living in south east London and beyond receive faster access to care, diagnostic tools, and medical technology.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended two digital health technologies for psychosis developed at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. 

SloMo (previously SlowMo) can be used for managing distressing thoughts or paranoia. AVATAR therapy, developed in partnership with University College London, can be used to reduce the distress caused by voice-hearing in psychosis. 

The digital technologies are supported by the NIHR Maudsley BRC and Wellcome. They represent two of three digital technologies recommended by NICE which can now be used as an option in the NHS for adults and young people with psychosis.

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Population Health

Across 2023/24 we saw:

  • Eight Primary Care Webinars with 250 attendees have shared learning across primary care in south east London;
  • £7 million funding from UK Research and Innovation was awarded King's College London to establish a research theme in Population Mental Health;
  • 27,804 residents have received the Vital 5 Check through a mix of kiosk and face to face checks;
  • 134 people attended the annual Maternal Medicine Course for Primary Care;
  • 68% of people on the hypertension register in south east London now have controlled BP – a 19% increase from March 2021 – thanks to collaboration across the integrated care system;
  • £25m was awarded to King’s College London from the NIHR to fund Policy Research Units and tackle health and social care issues.

Sharing experience and progress

People with lived experience from alcohol harms and health and care leaders in south east London joined a workshop to discuss the challenges and opportunities to reduce the harm from alcohol and its impact on health. Hosted by King’s Health Partners and South East London Integrated Care System (SEL ICS), more than 50 experts came together tackle the challenges caused by drinking harmful amounts of alcohol, recording alcohol status, and providing advice.

The KHP Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity Clinical Academic Partnership joined together with Health Innovation Network South London and SEL ICS in a two-day hackathon, incorporating 22 people and an international panel of judges. Hackathon winners have won a mentorship and acceleration programme with OpenDot, to develop two prototypes to better support people with learning differences and their families and carers to live healthier lifestyles and adopt healthier diets. 

A Population Health and Equity webinar series - by King’s Health Partners, DEFACTUM and Human First - brought together experts from south east London and Central Denmark region to address challenges and solutions to improving social and health equity across two health systems. The series, attracting more than 300 attendees, focused on issues including respiratory health and tobacco dependence, challenges in responding to the effects of infectious disease, including long COVID, and consideration of how system trust and leading with compassion are enablers for improving health equity.

Smoking cessation

As part of the King’s Health Partners and SEL ICS’s Vital 5 programme, all patients who smoke and are admitted to any hospital in south east London are offered support to quit. This year, King's College London researchers evaluated a smoking cessation service for patients admitted to King's College Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital, uncovering new evidence to support the roll out of similar tobacco dependency treatment services in other NHS hospitals. The study, published in BMC Medicine, assessed the uptake and impact of an adapted Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation (OMSC). SEL ICS is the only ICS in London to have committed additional recurrent health inequalities funding to
roll out the Ottawa model across the system.

Appointments

Prof Josip Car, Professor of Population and Digital Health Sciences, and Head of School of Life Course and Population Sciences, has been appointed Director for Population Health, King's Health Partners. Among the major population health initiatives across King's Health Partners and wider health system, Prof Car, working closely with Directors of Clinical Strategy, will play a leading role in the joint KHP and SEL ICS Population Health & Equity programme, working with teams across King's Health Partners to improve health system's performance and accelerate at scale improvement of health outcomes.

“Working together across the partnership and south east London will enhance prediction, early intervention and strengthen disease prevention and management, across diverse population groups. Our bold goal is health equity for our patients and communities.”

— Prof Josip Car, Director for Population Health, King's Health Partners

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Building a learning community

In 2023:

  • The Learning Hub was accessed 11,925 times across 97 countries;
  • 5,411 people joined muti-disciplinary and multispeciality in-person and virtual events and webinars in 2023/24;
  • 447 attendees joined KHP’s Annual Conference 2023;
  • 300 people people attended a KHP Cardiovascular Research Conference series to share learning across the partnership;
  • 215 experts have attended monthly KHP Academic Surgery Grand Rounds;
  • 173 people across KHP and beyond attended the fifth KHP Functional Neurological Disorders Masterclass, providing clinical and research updates;
  • 46 Integrated Academic Training posts were awarded to King's College London for 2024 and 2025, representing the highest allocation in London for 2024 and joint second total number nationally;
  • 4 clinical leaders across KHP are undertaking the King's Business School Advanced Leadership in Healthcare Management, jointly delivered with IE Business School (Madrid).

Artificial Intelligence

King’s College London was awarded £5m in funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of a £31m investment across universities to develop trustworthy and secure AI to solve major challenges. 

The Responsible AI UK Health and Social Care Working Group, chaired by Prof Prokar Dasgupta, works to ensure the development and deployment of AI in health and social care is responsible and equitable, benefitting all people, communities and society. The second cohort of AI fellows—equipping healthcare leaders to adopt clinical AI—are being embedded in a clinical AI team of NHS Trusts to deploy and evaluate state-of-the-art clinical AI software in live hospital environments.

"AI technology has huge potential to transform healthcare - providing life-changing medical treatment, improving patient outcomes through diagnostics and monitoring, and even supporting surgeons within the operating theatre. This investment is a hugely exciting prospect for the future of healthcare and the next generation of surgical trainees and students embarking on their careers."

— Prof Prokar Dasgupta, Professor of Surgery, King's Health Partners, and Healthcare Lead for the UKRI Responsible Artificial Intelligence UK (RAI UK)

Improving maternal health

The Essential Knowledge for Obstetric Medicine course, run by KHP Women and Children's Health, advances knowledge of obstetric medicine in a multidisciplinary setting, which encompasses medical disorders in pregnancy through specialist lectures and interactive learning. The module draws upon all the clinical and academic strengths within KHP and the King's College London Department of Women and Children's Health. The course has upskilled 71 participants from multidisciplinary settings over three years.

Working with the international community

King’s Health Partners co-hosted the Erasmus MC (Rotterdam) executive course in High Value Care with South East London Cancer Alliance at King's Business School. The course, aimed at clinical leadership, brought together 40 colleagues from local, national, and international partners including:

  • each of our NHS partners;
  • SEL ICS;
  • Health Innovation Network South London;
  • Department of Health and Social Care;
  • Region Midtjylland (Denmark);
  • International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM);
  • NHS Wales Welsh Value in Health Centre;
  • Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management;
  • Industry contributors.

King’s Health Partners is a founding member of the European University Hospitals Alliance (EUHA) and this year joined the EUHA Member’s Assembly: Pioneering the Future of Healthcare, hosted by Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.

The event brought together the EUHA Working and Network Groups to tackle pressing healthcare challenges and strategise for the future. King’s Health Partners also contributed to an international conference: The Future of Healthcare Systems – supporting clinical-academic integration for health system sustainability, held at Aarhus University, Denmark with representatives from KHP Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity offering perspectives on the need for continued evolution to an academic health science system, integrating mental and physical health.

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"Our ambition to improve patient care and tackle health inequalities remains at the forefront of everything we do. The partnership's fifteenth birthday gives us the opportunity to celebrate longer term initiatives, such as the Vital 5 and IMPARTS, which have delivered improvements and contributed to our understanding of how we deliver lasting change.

"We are also now looking forward to an exciting next phase of partnership and the opportunity to be truly transformative in the work we do together – as we co-create our strategy for the next five years. King’s Health Partners will be at the forefront of innovation delivered by the brilliant people working across the partnership – a leader in ensuring cutting-edge research makes a real difference to the inequalities facing the communities we serve."

— Dr Catherine French, Director of Strategy, King’s Health Partners

"Significant progress to align the NHS and academic partners has seen a transformation of health and care delivery in south east London. Over the years, the establishment of the clinical academic groups has underpinned substantial research funding investments, enabling the engine of world-class excellence in health research to be coupled with academic expertise in medical education and training. Through this strategic alignment of the partners, real progress has been made and the AHSC is working across all its programmes to get the best outcomes for the local population."

— Prof Sir Chris Whitty - Chief Medical Officer for England 

Download the full KHP Impact Report 2023/24

Our achievements are also set out in the Impact Report 2022-23 (PDF), Impact Report 2021-22 (PDF), and Impact Report 2020-21 (PDF).

To request accessible versions of any of these reports, please contact us.

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