Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

History

Guy's Hospital was first established as an NHS Trust 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 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 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, and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

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 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 near London Bridge in 2016.

The Trust entered into a contract with Johnson & Johnson 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

References

1. "Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21".
2. "Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust". NHS Partners.
3. (5 December 2013). "Trust super-merger shelved". Health Service Journal.
4. (11 November 2022). "Chart of the week: The cost of NHS backlog maintenance hits an all-time high". Nuffield Trust.
5. (22 December 2014). "NHS DNA scheme to fight cancer and genetic diseases". BBC News.
6. (9 May 2014). "Viapath – a New Brand, Same Commitment to Transform Pathology Services". Select Science.
7. (16 October 2015). "Analysed: The biggest NHS providers of specialised services". Health Service Journal.
8. (31 October 2018). "Major tertiary provider restricts out-of-area referrals". Health Service Journal.
9. (30 April 2019). "GUY'S AND ST THOMAS' NHS FOUNDATION TRUST Trust opens privately-run specialist centre". Health Service Journal.
10. (22 February 2022). "Trust drops £310m 'centre of excellence' construction deal". Health Service Journal.
11. (2 March 2016). "NHS expands private care to help fill £20bn funding gap". Financial Times.
12. (17 November 2017). "Trust awards £300m orthopaedics contract to US firm". Health Service Journal.
13. Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS foundation trust. "An apology from the Chief Executive for the IT failure at Guy's and St Thomas'".
14. Campbell, Denis. (2022-07-21). "London NHS trust cancels operations as IT system fails in heatwave".
15. Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. (2022-07-22). "Public Board of Directors Meeting".
16. (2022-08-07). "Chaos after heat crashes computers at leading London hospitals".