27 July 2026

The four founding partners of King’s Health Partners (KHP) have launched a Memorandum of Understanding to identify opportunities to improve clinical academic career paths.

KHP – comprised of King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’, and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts as well as King's College London – is a major centre for training multidisciplinary clinical academics and is the largest provider of healthcare training in Europe. King's College London employs more than 800 registered health professionals on doctoral degree programmes as well as more than 550 active health professional staff. Additionally, approximately 575 Trust staff members hold honorary appointments with the university.

Studies show research-active healthcare settings lead to better patient outcomes, increased patient confidence in their care, and greater staff satisfaction, recruitment, and retention. Clinically-trained researchers play a central role in translating research and innovation into better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. Clinicians in turn play a crucial role in educating and training the future NHS workforce. The life sciences sector helps drive economic growth in the UK, as reflected in the ambitions of the recently published NHS 10 Year Plan and Life Sciences Sector plan. 

Yet navigating a clinical academic career across organisational boundaries is not always straightforward. In response to this, the four partners of KHP have been working together to identify opportunities to improve support for clinical academics, particularly in relation to HR processes.

The MoU provides an agreed set of principles defining how partners commit to working together to provide a good experience for the clinical academic community. It includes improving shared processes between partners on matters of employment - including recruitment, appraisals, job planning, and education. 

The MoU was developed through wide consultation with the clinical academic community and is inclusive of all health professions working in shared roles which have both academic and clinical components.

Prof Graham Lord, Executive Director, King’s Health Partners, said:

"This MoU represents an important milestone in our shared ambition to strengthen clinical academic careers at King's Health Partners. By working together across organisations – and responding to the experiences of our clinical academic communities – we can tackle the common barriers for entry, retention, and progression. These benefits extend far beyond individual career achievements. A thriving clinical academic workforce helps translate research into practice, accelerates innovation, and ultimately delivers better outcomes and experiences for the patients and communities we serve.”

This Protocol supports and supplements the Follett Review principles for health and care professionals.

Read the full Memorandum of Understanding on the King's College London website.