Guy's and St Thomas' and Royal Brompton & Harefield joint statement

Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Royal Brompton & Harefield joint statement regarding plans for closer working:

Since 2017, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trusts have been working together, and with colleagues across King’s Health Partners, to develop plans to transform care for people with heart and lung disease.

Our two Trusts have a long history of being at the forefront of patient care and research. Throughout our discussions, together, and with our wider partnership, we have remained focused on how we can use our collective clinical and academic expertise to provide the best possible care to patients, meet all national standards for paediatric congenital heart disease and ensure the long-term future of the specialist services currently provided at Royal Brompton Hospital. 

It has become increasingly clear to the Boards of both Trusts that full integration of the services provided by Royal Brompton & Harefield with those at Guy’s and St Thomas’, in effect an agreed merger, is the best and most positive way of securing these aims and the collective vision of the wider partnership. This includes the creation of a hub for highly specialised clinical academic cardio-respiratory services at the St Thomas’ site.

The Boards of both Trusts are confident that by formally bringing together our respective organisations and the shared expertise of our clinical and academic teams, we can significantly improve care and outcomes for people with cardiovascular and respiratory disease. This ambitious venture, in partnership with King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and our academic partners, will create a centre of national excellence for the care of adults and children, which will sit at the heart of a population health system working together to significantly reduce the burden of these conditions. 

At their public board meeting, NHS England have reiterated their support for our approach to closer working between our two Trusts. They have also confirmed their backing for a merger of the two organisations. Further details of this transaction, the process, and the next steps will be set out in a ‘letter of intent’ between the Trusts, which we expect to be agreed shortly. 

We wholeheartedly welcome this news. The proposals set out by NHS England today also provide the necessary assurances to protect and maintain the provision of high quality services to the population of north west London and continued cardio-respiratory research excellence across London; and we will be taking this forward with our NHS partners and with King’s College London and Imperial College London. 

Clinicians and patients have already been involved in developing these proposals, and we will continue to work closely with them as we take forward our plans, which will also be subject to any engagement, consultation and regulatory approval required.