Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is 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 ...

which was formed on 1 October 2013 and is responsible for running two acute hospitals, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and

University Hospital Lewisham University Hospital Lewisham (formerly known as Lewisham Hospital) is a teaching hospital run by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and serving the London Borough of Lewisham. It is now affiliated with King's College London and forms part of the K ...

, in addition to community health services in

Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified i ...

. The trust was formed by the acquisition of the acquisition of Queen Elizabeth Hospital by

Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is an NHS trust which was formed on 1 October 2013 and is responsible for running two acute hospitals, Queen Elizabeth Hospital and University Hospital Lewisham, in addition to community health services in Lewisha ...

upon the dissolution of

South London Healthcare NHS Trust South London Healthcare NHS Trust was a British National Health Service trust which ran three hospitals in south east London. It was dissolved on 1 October 2013 after going into administration. South London Healthcare NHS Trust was formed in 2009 ...

. Despite extensive local opposition and legal challenges in Lewisham, the merger was approved by

Secretary of State for Health The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent ...

Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician who has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer since 14 October 2022. He previously served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport ...

on 26 September 2013. Both hospitals continue to operate

emergency department An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pati ...

acute medicine Acute medicine is a specialty within internal medicine concerned with the immediate and early specialist management of adult patients with a wide range of medical conditions who present in hospital as emergencies. It developed in the United Kingdom ...

services and maternity units following the High Court decision which ruled that the plan to close services at Lewisham Hospital was unlawful, a judgement which was subsequently upheld in the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

History

The trust was established as the Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust on 22 March 1993, and became operational on 1 April 1993.

Overseas patients

From 2015 the trust used

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to identify overseas visitors who could be charged for NHS treatment. In 2018-9 it issued bills to ineligible patients for £4.1 million, slightly down on the previous year, but collected only £528,000. In September 2019 they suspended this policy and the contract was cancelled in January 2020. An independent review subsequently found some of its patients were left feeling “uncomfortable, scared or unable to seek timely treatment” by this approach, although the panel had received “independent assurances” their application of the current framework was “in line” with legislative guidance.

Performance

The Trust was given an £8.5m bailout of public dividend capital by the Department of Health to cover an unexpected deficit for the financial year 2014-15. The

General Medical Council The General Medical Council (GMC) is a public body that maintains the official register of medical practitioners within the United Kingdom. Its chief responsibility is to "protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public" by c ...

put the trust on an enhanced monitoring list in February 2017 after complaints from junior doctors about "clinical supervision, serious incident reporting, trust leadership, rotas and rota management, workload, educational supervision, pastoral support and access to educational opportunities". It was inspected by 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. I ...

in 2014 and was rated inadequate. In 2016 it had improved and was rated ‘requires improvement’. The maternity and gynaecology department was rated as good. It planned for a year end deficit of £22.8 million for 2017-18 but by the end of July it was £12.4 million behind plan. In January 2018 it had to borrow £95 million on a turnover of £539 million. It had a plan, which was not achieved, equalling 8.6% of turnover, the closure of seven wards and a reduction in the average length of stay from 8.1 to 4.7 days. Its elective procedures are outsourced, orthopaedic surgery to

BMI Healthcare BMI Healthcare was an independent provider of private healthcare, offering treatment to private patients, medically insured patients, and NHS patients. , it had 54 private hospitals and healthcare facilities across the UK, with headquarters in ...

and vascular surgery to Frontière Médicale.

Choir

The Trust's

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

, the

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir The Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir is made up of a wide range of NHS workers, including doctors, nurses, therapists and many other staff from across the NHS workforce. In 2015, they achieved the UK Christmas number 1, with their single " A Bridge ...

, appeared on

Gareth Malone Gareth Edmund Malone (born 9 November 1975) is an English choirmaster and broadcaster, self-described as an "animateur, presenter and populariser of choral singing". He is best known for his television appearances in programmes such as '' The ...

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

competition show '' The Choir: Sing While You Work'' in 2013, where they finished second. They reached Christmas singles chart number one in 2015 with their charity record " A Bridge over You", beating Justin Bieber's top-selling "Love Yourself" in the process. In 2020, they recorded a version of Bieber's "Holy", with the two former rivals combining to challenge for the Christmas number one spot. However, when the record was released on 18 December 2020 it still had a credit for Chance the Rapper, like the original version, which first entered the UK chart on 25 September 2020. As the new record was seen as just a remix, "Holy" ended up at Number 41 in the Christmas chart with 17,594 sales, after being classed as per the original release with no additional credit for the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir. They also were seen performing

Joy to the World "Joy to the World" is an English Christmas carol. The carol was written in 1719 by the English minister and hymnwriter Isaac Watts, and its lyrics are an interpretation of Psalm 98 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Today, the carol is usua ...

after the Queen's Speech on Christmas Day 2020.

References

External links

*
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust on the NHS website

Inspection reports
from the