Who we are

King’s Health Partners’ Women and Children’s Health strengthens women and children’s healthcare, research, education, and training at three NHS Foundation Trusts - Guy’s and St Thomas’ (including Evelina London Children’s Hospital), King’s College Hospital (including Variety Children’s Hospital), and South London and Maudsley - and one of the world’s top research-led universities, King’s College London.

Our vision is to improve health outcomes for women and children, with a focus on populations disproportionately affected by adverse health. Our Clinical Academic Partnership exists to improve evidence-based practice, and we aim to support improvements in research, education, and healthcare locally, nationally, and globally.

Our strategic priorities are to improve women’s and children’s health by facilitating connectivity across the partnership to deliver National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) objectives for Academic Health Sciences Centres (AHSC). We do this by:

Augmenting the research translation pathway

We are closing the translation gaps between best evidence and practice by embedding research and evaluation in clinical practice. Ask the Institute is a service designed specifically to help support better connectivity between the NHS and academic community.

Enabling clinical-academic development and activity

By providing practical and technical support to develop and deliver research; support to develop and deliver multi-professional training; and connecting colleagues for high-impact research, career development and networking. We coordinate these activities via our Knowledge Hub.

Leveraging partner assets to enhance care and research

Ask the Institute provides a mechanism through which we share and build on Learning Health System expertise developed via the Children and Young People’s Health Partnership model. We support colleagues to develop and deliver low-resource, high-impact research, connecting King’s College London and the NHS to realise the potential of health data for care and research.

Context

There are substantial health inequalities in south east London, and disparities in health outcomes are particularly pronounced in women and children–especially among women from black African, black Caribbean, South Asian and other non-White British ethnic groups. For example, the risk of dying in pregnancy is four times higher in black women compared to white women, and in at least one south east London borough, black women are three times more likely to be diagnosed with hypertension than white women.

The range of illnesses that disproportionately affect women extends beyond obstetric and gynaecological conditions and includes anxiety and depression, cardiovascular health, chronic pain, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Additionally, the links between maternal and child health is clear - we know that social and economic inequalities experienced at an early age have an impact on health outcomes and these persist across the life course. In south east London, between 8.9% and 16.9% of children under 16 were living in low-income families in 2020/21 and almost a third (32.2%) of children in one south east London borough were living in households owed a duty of care under the Homeless Reduction Act. Such levels of deprivation will continue to place a significant burden on the south east London health system and there is an urgent need to address poor outcomes at every stage of the life course.

To get in touch and learn more about our work, please email khp-iwch@kcl.ac.uk.