South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

The South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust based in London, United Kingdom. It comprises three psychiatric hospitals (Bethlem Royal Hospital, Lambeth Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital), the specialist Ladywell Unit based at University Hospital Lewisham, and over 100 community sites and 300 clinical teams.^[1]

Each year the Trust provides about 5,000 people with hospital treatment and about 40,000 people with community services.^[1] In partnership with King's College London the Trust has major research activities. The Trust forms part of the King's Health Partners academic health science centre and together with the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London is host to the UK’s only specialist National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre for mental health.^[2] In 2009/10 the Trust had a turnover of £370 million.^[2]

The Trust's work on promoting mental health and well-being, developed in partnership with the new economics foundation, has featured in the national media.^{[3] [4]}

History

^{[5] [6]}

• 1247. The Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem, Bishopsgate, was founded on land given by Alderman Simon Fitzmary. It later became a place of refuge for the sick and infirm. The names ‘Bethlem’ and ‘Bedlam’, by which it came to be known, are early variants of ‘Bethlehem’. It is first referred to as a hospital for ‘insane’ patients in 1403, after which it has a continuous history of caring for people with mental distress.
• 1867. In 1867, the Southern Districts Hospital (or Stockwell Fever Hospital as it became known) opened on the site which is today known as Lambeth Hospital.
• 1908. Henry Maudsley wrote to the London County Council offering to contribute £30k towards the costs of establishing a “fitly equipped hospital for mental diseases.” The Maudsley initially opened as a military hospital in 1915 to treat cases of shell shock and became a psychiatric hospital for the people of London in 1923.
• 1948. With the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, the Bethlem Royal Hospital and Maudsley Hospital were merged to form a postgraduate psychiatric teaching hospital. The Maudsley’s medical school became the Institute of Psychiatry.
• 1954. Sister Lena Peat and Reginald Bowen became the first community psychiatric nurses, following up patients at home who had been discharged from Warlingham Park Hospital in Croydon.
• 1997. The Ladywell Unit, located at University Hospital Lewisham, was refurbished for use by adult inpatient mental health services. The development brought together inpatient services which had previously been spread across other hospital sites (Hither Green, Guy’s and Bexley).
• 1999. South London and Maudsley NHS Trust was formed - providing mental health and substance misuse services across Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark; substance misuse services in Bexley Greenwich and Bromley; and national specialist services for people from across the UK.
• 2006. South London and Maudsley became the 50th NHS Foundation Trust in the UK under the Health and Social Care [Community Health and Standards] Act 2003.
• 2009. South London and Maudsley is part of one of the five Academic Health Sciences Centres (AHSCs) in the U.K to be accredited by the Department of Health. King’s Health Partners AHSC consists of SLaM, King’s College London, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts. ^{[7] [8]}

Services

The Trust provides a wide range of mental health and substance misuse services. The Trust provides care and treatment for a local population of 1.1 million people in south London, as well as specialist services for people from across the country. The Trust provides mental health services for people of all ages from over 100 community sites in south London, three psychiatric hospitals (the Bethlem Royal Hospital, Lambeth Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital) and specialist units based at other hospitals.

Research

The Trust's research activities take place in close partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.

Biomedical Research Centre

The Trust manages the UK’s only Specialist Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre in partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. The Centre, which is based on the Maudsley Hospital campus, is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Its aim is to speed up the pace that latest medical research findings are turned into improved clinical care and services.

The team at the Centre are working towards 'personalised medicine' - developing treatments based on individual need. The aim is to diagnose illness more effectively and much earlier, assess which treatments will work best for an individual and then tailor the care they receive accordingly, so that they get better more quickly.

One recent finding to emerge from the BRC is that people suffering serious mental illness can expect to live up to 18 years less than the national average. The research is the first to examine life expectancy for people with specific mental illnesses in the UK and shows that women with schizoaffective disorder and men with schizophrenia are among those most affected, with a reduced life expectancy of 17.5 years and 14.6 years respectively. The study looked at people suffering bipolar disorder, depressive disorders, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia and people treated for substance misuse. The findings were published in scientific journal PLoS One and demonstrate the need for more assertive interventions and regular physical health assessments to prevent premature death among these vulnerable groups. ^[9]

The BRC’s development of advanced computer programme to accurately detect the early signs of Alzheimer's disease from a routine clinical brain scan was reported in the media in 2011. The 'Automated MRI' software automatically compares or benchmarks someone’s brain scan image against 1200 others, each showing varying stages of Alzheimer’s disease. ^[10]

On 18th August 2011, the Department of Health announced that the Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London would receive a further £48.8m to continue running the Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health for a further five years from 1 April 2012. An additional £4.5m was been awarded to the Trust to launch for a new NIHR Biomedical Research Unit for Dementia. ^{[11] [12] [13]}

King's Health Partners

The Trust is a member of the King's Health Partners academic health sciences centre, together with King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

National Addiction Centre

In partnership with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, the Trust runs the National Addiction Centre (NAC), which aims to develop new treatment services for alcohol, smoking and drug problems. This work ranges from trials of new therapies and preventative treatments, to studies seeking to understand the genetic and biological basis of addictive behaviour.

An examples of research in this field is the Randomised Injecting Opioid Treatment Trial (RIOTT), a major scientific trial to evaluate a new style of treatment for people with the most severely entrenched heroin addiction. The trial involved use of using supervised injection of methadone and diamorphine, under controlled clinical conditions. It showed that it is possible to engage and retain in treatment some of the most entrenched hard-to-treat heroin addicts for whom previous treatment, rehabilitation and prison appear to have had little beneficial impact. ^[14]

References

External links

• South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust main website
• King's Health Partners
• National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
• PloS one
• BBC News
• Five Ways to Well-being: The Evidence, New Economics Foundation. October 2008