We work with many other health and research organisations. We have particularly strong links with our local university, King’s College London, and with the neighbouring NHS Foundation Trusts of King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley.
We work with these partners through the Biomedical Research Centre, and as part of King’s Health Partners.
Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)
The BRC is a collaboration between King's College London and ourselves. It is dedicated to 'translating' scientific discoveries into improvements in treatment as quickly as possible by bringing together scientists and clinicians.
www.guysandstthomasbrc.nihr.ac.uk|
King’s Health Partners
King’s Health Partners is one of the UK’s 5 Academic Health Sciences Centres (AHSC). This brings together a world leading university and 3 successful NHS Foundation trusts:
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King's College London
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Guy’s and St Thomas’
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King’s College Hospital
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South London and Maudsley.
We bring together world-class research, teaching and clinical practice for the benefit of patients. We want to make sure that knowledge from research is used swiftly and effectively to improve healthcare for people with physical and mental health care problems.
www.kingshealthpartners.org|
Bench to bedside
Often academics (the people doing ‘basic’, or early stage, research) and clinicians (the people who treat and care for patients) do not have much contact with each other. This means that:
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academics don’t have access to patients or samples to help test a new drug or treatment, so it can take a long time to recruit volunteers or get the samples
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clinicians don’t hear about potential new drugs or treatments straightaway, so their patients don’t benefit as quickly as they could – or the new drug or treatment isn’t disregarded as quickly as possible
As a hospital involved in research, we bring together academics and clinicians. This speeds up this ‘bench to bedside’ process, ensuring that a discovery in the laboratory leads as quickly as possible to a change in treatment, new drug or improvement in patient care.
Improving this process not only saves time, but also money as studies can be done more quickly and efficiently. This helps the research budget to go further.