Patient care

Collectively we provide one of the largest combination of neurosciences services in the country, which includes:

• Local and specialist services, including neurosurgery, neurology and stroke at the Regional Neurosciences Centre at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
• Stroke and neurology at the Princess Royal University Hospital.
• Nationally commissioned neurofibromatosis service along with neurology, neurophysiology and pain at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
• Nationally renowned neuropsychiatry service at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
• In addition, our three partner trusts play a role in the provision of bed and community-based neurorehabilitation services and provide paediatric neurosciences services, except for neurosurgery. These paediatric services fall under the remit of the King’s Health Partners Women and Children’s Health, with strong transitional arrangements through to adult services.

Our achievements in patient care include:

• The widest range of treatments for epilepsy in the UK, including the UK’s first out-of-hospital video electroencephalography service, enabling patients to have access to this diagnostic test in their own home.
• Pioneering the adoption of new techniques and service models in neuro-oncology. For example, we were the first UK centre to use BrainPath, a system to enable minimally invasive surgery for brain tumours. In March 2021, we were awarded the status of Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Centre of Excellence in recognition of our excellence in clinical practice, patient care and research.
• The first Motor Neuron Disease Care and Research Centre in the UK, which led pivotal treatment trials of Riluzole, now standard treatment. This is the only drug shown to improve survival in any neurodegenerative disease. The team also developed a clinical staging system used in patient management worldwide.
• King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of only two neurofibromatosis centres in the UK performing auditory brainstem implants in collaboration with Evelina London Children’s Hospital at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, to correct hearing defects arising from surgical removal of tumours near the hearing nerve.
• One of ten centres in the world offering percutaneous fetoscopic repair of open neural tube defects, which is surgery on a fetus' spine to treat spina bifida.

Our plans

We will develop our neurological recovery knowledge, skills and ethos, focussing on empowering patients to live as well as possible with their condition and enhancing pathways to maximise recovery. We will continue to harness the potential of emerging non-invasive techniques, assessing their effectiveness and opportunities for further tailoring and personalising their input to care. Our Institute will use new and cutting-edge technology to drive and improve recovery, with, for example gaming consoles, robots and virtual wards, and extend the use of wearable technology to monitor patients at home and in the community, supporting long-term treatment effectiveness.

Our work will focus on measuring holistic outcomes across patient pathways beyond hospital-based care. Outcomes include social and work/employment, to understand how these impact on health inequalities so that solutions can be developed to address these.

Alongside this, we are building on our relationships across the partnership to further develop integrated services and clinical teams, working towards common pathways and standards.

Read our latest news and learn more about upcoming events.

Read our Outcomes Book to learn more about our work.

To get in touch with the Institute and learn more about our work, please email KHPNeurosciences@kcl.ac.uk.