It is once again a privilege to present the Trust’s annual review. Reflecting on the achievements of our expert teams and their many successes, is a rewarding and enjoyable task each year.
It is easy to become blasé about the statistics that are included in these reports, and pausing to consider the implications behind the numbers is a valuable exercise.
Teams at the Trust produced a remarkable 886 peer-reviewed publications with our academic partners during 2019-20. For a leading centre for cardiovascular, critical care and respiratory research an impressive research portfolio could be expected. But these published papers reflect no fewer than 886 different breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of heart and lung disease, each one of which has the potential to improve patient care.
The same teams recruited over 2,300 patients onto over 100 research programmes, giving them the opportunity to contribute towards breaking new ground in cardiovascular and respiratory treatment.
Our frontline staff saw 216,000 patients in outpatient clinics during 2019-20 and cared for nearly 40,000 patients of all ages on our wards. A striking 96 per cent recommendation score in the annual Friends and Family Test shows just how much they were appreciated.
As a specialist Trust our hospitals do not provide emergency departments but our heart attack centre at Harefield delivers a vital emergency service for a wide area of the home counties. During 2019-20 our cardiology teams maintained one of the fastest arrival to treatment times for UK heart attack patients, at just 23 minutes. The UK average is almost double that.
Similarly impressive results were recorded by the Trust’s Day of Surgery pilot scheme, with 70 per cent of cardiac surgery patients admitted on the day of surgery by the end of the scheme; the figure was just four per cent at the start.
The year has seen the launch of a number of innovative programmes.
Teams at the Trust were awarded a Health Service Journal Partnership Award for their work to improve the lives of people with cystic fibrosis (CF).
Working in partnership with NuvoAir, the CF team designed a patient platform to be used to self-monitor lung function, archive data and share this with clinical teams during virtual consultations. The platform and virtual service were developed following patient surveys of adults with CF which highlighted the impact of having to attend regular face-to-face appointments.
Our paediatric colleagues were delighted to welcome Harley Baby II to their team. This lifelike mannequin allows clinicians to simulate emergency cardiac procedures in infants in a more realistic way than ever before. Harley Baby II includes a replica of a toddler’s heart, reinforced skin and fat layers, a chest incision, a metal chest opening mechanism and three chest drains, to enable the simulation to be as close to clinical practice as possible.
Patients with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of irregular heartbeat affecting around a million people in the UK, now have access to a new heart implant at the Trust. The ground-breaking ‘Watchman FLX’ can help reduce the risk of stroke by up to 80 per cent and offers a permanent alternative to blood-thinning medication.
Investing in our facilities
As part of our commitment to improving patient care, work started on a new state-of-the-art imaging centre at Royal Brompton Hospital in April 2019. Our current imaging facilities already offer patients some of the most cutting-edge services to diagnose cases of suspected heart and lung disease in the UK. The new centre will allow us to expand clinical services, increase research and education programmes and create the type of sophisticated environment patients expect from a leading specialist heart and lung hospital Trust. It will also improve access to our imaging services, including CT (Computerised Tomography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and X-ray for both children and adults in a bigger, better space. Plans for the centre have been co-designed with clinical teams and patients to ensure that we provide the best care in a suitable environment. The centre should open in late 2021 and represents an investment of £47 million.
Closer working with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
On January 31st 2020, our discussions with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust moved forward with the announcement that full integration of our services, to include the creation of a hub for highly specialised clinical academic cardio-respiratory services at the St Thomas’ site, was the best and most positive way of securing a sustainable future for the Trust.
We have been working with Guy’s and St Thomas’ and with colleagues across King’s Health Partners since 2017 to develop plans to transform care for people with heart and lung disease.
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, in effect an agreed merger, we can significantly improve care and outcomes for people with cardiovascular and respiratory disease. This ambitious venture 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.
Our plans 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 our historic relationship with our main academic partner Imperial College, London.
Our staff 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.
Patients are at the heart of our proposals and our commitment to them will continue to guide everything that we do.
COVID-19 update
As the period covered by this review ended, the first patient with COVID-19 was admitted to our hospitals (in mid-March 2020).
As part of a London-wide and national response, teams at our hospitals nearly tripled their critical care capacity to accommodate patients most seriously affected by the virus.
The Trust is one of five adult ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) centres in England, and our cumulative ECMO caseload was one of the highest in Europe.
Our talented, skilled and committed teams responded to the pandemic with exceptional courage and resilience. Their stories, and their exceptional response, will be documented in full in our next annual review.