Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is an

NHS foundation trust A foundation trust is a semi-autonomous organisational unit within the National Health Service in England. They have a degree of independence from the Department of Health and Social Care (and, until the abolition of SHAs in 2013, their local st ...

of the English

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

, one of the prestigious Shelford Group. It runs

Guy's Hospital Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science cent ...

in London Bridge,

St Thomas' Hospital St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. It is one of the institutions that compose the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS ...

in Waterloo, Evelina London Children's Hospital, two specialist heart and lung hospitals, Royal Brompton and Harefield and community services in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.

History

Guy's Hospital was first established as an

NHS Trust An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...

including University Hospital Lewisham but in 1993 Lewisham became independent and Guy's and St Thomas' joined together. In December 2013 it was announced that a proposed merger with

King's College Hospital King's College Hospital is a major teaching hospital and major trauma centre in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH". It is managed by ...

and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust foundation trusts had been suspended because of doubts about the reaction of the Competition Commission. In 2019 it was closely involved with Kings, with which it shares its chair, Sir Hugh Taylor, its strategy director and IT director. In 2013 the Trust established a unique multidisciplinary consultancy now called Lexica, that enables public and private sector organisations to transform their environments to create better health. Lexica re-invest profits within the Trust. Lexica provides specialist advisory services in health and life science sectors across healthcare strategy + planning, property, cost, project and programme management, Net Zero and infrastructure solutions. In 2022 the outstanding maintenance bill was £463 million, the second largest in the English NHS.

Facilities

The trust has one of the eleven Genomics Medicines Centres associated with Genomics England which opened across England in February 2014. The trust is a partner in Viapath a London-based provider of pathology services jointly owned with

Serco Serco Group plc is a British company with headquarters based in Hook, Hampshire, England. Serco primarily derives income as a contractor for the provision of government services, most prominently in the sectors of health, transport, justice, i ...

, and

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS trust in London, England. It is closely involved with Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, with which it shares its chair, Sir Hugh Taylor, its strategy director and IT director. ...

. It is one of the biggest provider of specialised services in England, which generated an income of £383.7 million in 2014/5. In October 2018 it had to impose geographical limits on specialist paediatric referrals for dermatology and urology after a large increase in referrals from North London, Kent and Sussex made the waiting times unmanageable. It made a contract with

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

in 2017 to open eight new operating theatres by 2020. The first one opened in April 2019. This was part of a plan for an Orthopaedic Centre of Excellence in a deal worth up to £310 million, but the plan was dropped in 2022 because of the ‘impact of covid’.

Private patients

The Trust offers a range of services privately including assisted conception, services for children and maternity. Other complex care specialties including cardiology, vascular and thoracic surgery, gynaecology, general surgery and medicine are available at the Westminster Unit. Guy's and St Thomas' Private Healthcare also specialise in adult and children’s renal transplantation and operate one of the largest programmes in Europe. The Trust built a £100 million integrated cancer centre in conjunction with

HCA Healthcare HCA Healthcare is an American for-profit operator of health care facilities that was founded in 1968. It is based in Nashville, Tennessee, and, as of May 2020, owns and operates 186 hospitals and approximately 2,000 sites of care, including surg ...

near London Bridge in 2016. The Trust entered into a contract with

in November 2017 for £310 million thought to run for 10 years. It includes a "managed service agreement" for the procurement of prosthetics, surgical instruments and other consumables for orthopaedic surgery and the development of eight new operating theatres on the Guy's hospital site.

Controversies

2022 IT systems failure

On Tuesday, the 19 July 2022, during the UK and wider European heatwaves of 2022, the IT systems of Guy's and St Thomas failed due to extreme operating temperatures. Two data centres within the hospital trust failed, causing mass IT outages across the hospital's sites including those at Guy's London Bridge hospital and St. Thomas' Waterloo hospital. Mostly resolved after three weeks, the impact of care-critical systems going down, including the ability to digitally send prescriptions, order X-rays, or run cancer clinics, have raised questions whether the current system is fit for purpose. Issues relating to inadequate IT systems were raised in a previous board meeting in November 2021.

References

External links

*
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
on the NHS website
Inspection reports
from the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. ...

Royal Brompton and Harefield
{{Authority control NHS foundation trusts Health in London Shelford Group