We entered our sixth year of working in partnership with the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator to support the adoption of digital health companies into our hospitals as part of our CW Innovation programme.
We officially launched our transformative mental health programme for young people – Best For You.
New innovations included Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms which provide clinicians in ICU with real-time risk prediction for COVID-19 patients and the need for ventilators.
We installed our Sky Garden, a dedicated green space designed to support the physical and psychological needs of intensive care patients, their families and our staff.
We opened our CW+ Studio – a bespoke multi-functional art and social space where patients can participate in our award-winning Arts for All programme.
We celebrated the second anniversary of our CW Innovation programme and are now recognised as the official London test and scale site for innovation in the NHS.
In September we concluded our year-long celebrations of the centenary of West Middlesex University Hospital and its incredible history with a celebration for staff and service of thanksgiving.
Our online arts platform Virtual Connections has had over 5,000 views with over 200 on-demand videos showcasing a variety of art forms including new content from the National Portrait Gallery and English National Ballet School.
Our visual art collection expanded further throughout our hospitals with new commissions and acquisitions, such as this beautiful donated artwork by renowned artist Damien Hirst.
We announced the national roll-out of our Neonatal Palliative Care Project, in partnership with True Colours Trust, which will embed palliative care into routine neonatal services across the UK to support babies and families at the most difficult time.
We officially opened our new, state-of-the-art Adult and Neonatal Intensive Care Units at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
WELCOME
This year has been another difficult year for us all. Our staff across our hospitals and clinics have continued to work tirelessly to care for our patients and their loved ones in extremely challenging and uncertain times.
They have shown such dedication, compassion and kindness and we continue to be incredibly proud to work alongside them and support them, thanks to our generous donor community.
However, this year has also had many highlights and we are delighted to share some of these with you throughout this report.
Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our community, our COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund continued to be able to support patients and staff, including with health and wellbeing programmes and activities, the vast vaccination programme both at our hospitals and in the wider community, alongside the successful recruitment of over 500 patients to our international PIONEER COVID-19 research study. We officially opened our expanded and redeveloped Adult and Neonatal Intensive Care Units at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
These new units are providing worldclass critical care services with the latest state-of-the-art facilities and technology. We also opened our Sky Garden, located adjacent to the Adult Intensive Care Unit which provides a unique, green space away from the ward for patients, their loved ones and staff.
September marked the conclusion of our year-long celebration of West Middlesex’s 100th birthday. We organised an intimate church service of thanksgiving for staff followed by a garden BBQ celebration, attended by past and present staff and Sir David Sloman, NHS Regional Director for London. We also celebrated our second anniversary of CW Innovation with a series of virtual events to showcase the exciting and diverse portfolio of transformative projects.
We are incredibly proud to have been recognised as the only London NHS test and scale site for innovation. We were delighted to welcome our artists, musicians and performers back to our hospitals for the first time since the pandemic began, to entertain and interact with patients on the wards. Our online Arts in Health programme has continued and evolved, enabling patients to engage with our artists remotely.
It has also been a year of achievements. We were thrilled to win industry awards for our Arts in Health, HIV/Sexual Health and CW Innovation programmes.
November saw us officially launch the digital platform for our mental health programme for young people, Best For You. Together with leading NHS organisations, Best For You will uniquely integrate physical and mental health with community services and digital tools to provide the best care for young people and their families in our community. It is a hugely exciting project which has the potential to completely transform mental health care for young people on a national scale.
We were thrilled to partner with the renowned Saatchi Gallery to present a unique Arts in Health exhibition. Journeys: The Healing Arts is a selection of bespoke artworks from our collection and is the first time we have exhibited in a public gallery on this scale.
Yet again, our community has astounded us with their generosity and support over the last year. On behalf of all our patients, their families and our staff we want to say an enormous thank you.
| TONY BOURNE CHAIRMAN |
CHRIS CHANEY CEO |
CRITICAL CARE OPENING
In June 2021, we officially opened our state-of-the-art expansion and redevelopment of the Adult and Neonatal Intensive Care Units at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, enabling the treatment of more than 2,000 critically ill adults and babies every year. These new critical care facilities were only made possible thanks to the incredible support of our donors and local community.
We held a virtual opening to celebrate the launch with an audience of over 200 people which also received national and local press coverage.
SOPHIE’S AND LOUIS’ STORY
Sophie caught COVID-19 when she was 29 weeks pregnant and ended up in intensive care at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where her son Louis was born by emergency caesarean section two days later. Louis weighed just under 3.5lbs and spent the first eight weeks of his life in our newly opened Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
During this particularly challenging period of the pandemic, strict rules permitted visitors into the hospital. The first time Louis met his Dad, Stuart, he was 15 days old. Separated immediately at birth and subsequently sedated and ventilated in ICU, Sophie first met her baby boy when he was three weeks old.
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Six weeks later, Sophie and Louis were able to go home. Sophie says: “I cannot thank the amazing teams at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital enough – they literally saved our family. I am so grateful that Louis and I were not only able to benefit from the new, state-of-the-art facilities, advanced technologies and innovative approaches to care, but that we were also looked after by such incredible nurses and doctors.
They helped us at every step of the way including keeping us updated when we couldn’t see Louis in person to showing us how to bathe him before we were discharged. Thank you to everyone who donated to make these units what they are today – you helped save our lives.”
COVID-19 – A YEAR OF SUPPORT
Our communities have gone above and beyond to support our COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund, set up in March 2020. This enabled us to respond to the urgent needs of our patients and staff, providing new equipment, the latest technologies, and essential support for staff mental and physical wellbeing.
BEST FOR YOU
Our Best For You programme has advanced rapidly this year in response to the growing numbers of young people requiring urgent mental health care.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a steep rise in numbers of young people affected: 1 in 6 children and young people aged 5-16 are likely to have a mental health problem but only 25% receive the treatment they need.
Based initially in North West London, Best For You is a transformative new approach to mental health, which for the first time, integrates specialist medical and mental health care with community services and digital tools to provide comprehensive, rapid and long-term care in a way that best meets the needs of the individual and their family.
The Best For You first-of-its-kind model of care is being developed in collaboration with young people and their families and comprises of:
- A new digital platform (www.bestforyou.org.uk)
- Day services
- Community services
- A Young People’s Rapid Assessment Unit
Patients will be quickly and seamlessly assessed, transferred and treated, and then supported long-term with links to relevant community organisations to reinforce accelerated recovery and rehabilitation.
In November, we officially launched Best For You via a live, virtual event, which also received broad press coverage including BBC London Radio. The event coincided with the launch of the new digital platform, the first phase of the Best For You programme to go live.
THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS
We are extremely grateful to all our supporters who have made our work possible over the last year, including our anonymous donors, those who sent in gifts-in-kind, or delivered them to our hospitals in person. We would particularly like to acknowledge the following:
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THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDRAISERS
#100 YEARS OF WEST MIDDLESEX
Throughout 2020-21, we celebrated the centenary of West Middlesex University Hospital.
With in-person events restricted due to the pandemic, we have been showcasing elements of West Middlesex’s fascinating history on our website and social media, including old photos and stories as well as accounts from current West Middlesex staff on their experiences working at the hospital during the pandemic.
Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, CW+ Heritage Officer Celia Halsey is also leading on the creation and installation of an onsite heritage exhibition, uncovering details from our archive photos and documents to share with staff and visitors.
On 17 September 2021, we marked the end of West Middlesex’s extraordinary 100th year with a special service at All Saints Church in Isleworth and a celebration BBQ for past and present staff. We were delighted to be joined by Sir David Sloman, NHS Regional Director for London at this event.
CW Innovation, led jointly by CW+ and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, launched two years ago to identify, embed, test and scale high-impact innovations that improve patient care, patient experience and the way we run our hospitals.
This year, the CW Innovation programme has gone from strength to strength, with a growing portfolio of innovative solutions and models of care that: harness digital healthcare, AI and machine learning to dramatically improve patient care; deliver patient-centred care in a way that fits with their everyday lives; and create environments that promote wellbeing and foster healing by incorporating new technologies, architecture and design to transform the patient experience.
We have advanced at pace in response to the pandemic and introduced a range of digital systems and platforms into our day-to-day functioning to help us continue to deliver safe, consistent and high quality clinical care whilst helping to make things easier for our patients.
ARTS IN HEALTH
Our Arts in Health programme is a central part of our work at the Trust, encompassing visual art, participatory workshops and performances, film screenings at the CW+ MediCinema, our design and environment programme to enhance clinical and non-clinical spaces, and more.
CW+ STUDIO
This year, we celebrated the official opening of the CW+ Studio, a bespoke multi-functional art and social space at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which welcomed its first patients in April 2021 as part of our award-winning performance and participatory programme Arts for All.
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
Underpinning all of our work is an objective to grow a robust body of evidence that clearly demonstrates the impact on patient outcomes, care delivery and cost effectiveness of these programmes and enhancements.
JOURNEYS: THE HEALING ARTS
We are delighted to have partnered with Saatchi Gallery, to present a brand new, free exhibition which opened to the public in November and will run until January 2022. This is the first Arts in Health exhibition at the gallery and the first time we have exhibited artworks from our collection.
ARTS FOR ALL
We continue to offer our participatory arts programme via in-person sessions at both hospitals, and through our online platform Virtual Connections. In March 2021, after twelve months of remote delivery, the easing of restrictions allowed for the partial restart of ‘in-person’ participation workshops by Arts For All artists.
DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENT
Our programme creates works that are tailored to meet the needs of our hospital audience. Significant improvements to the design and environment across both hospitals have been made this year, ranging from complete ward refurbishments to new artwork commissions and installations.
HIV & SEXUAL HEALTH
As part of our work to improve and enhance patient care across the Trust, we are working with HIV/sexual health services at both our hospitals, and specialist clinics to make care, education and support accessible for all.
Over the last year, our HIV and sexual health teams have been heavily involved in the fight against COVID-19, including trials of vaccines and antiretroviral drugs, testing, and the vaccination roll-out. The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and antiretroviral therapies would not have been possible without the innovative breakthrough treatments developed through HIV research and discovery.
THE YEAR AHEAD
Over the coming year, we will continue to provide essential support for staff and patients and focus on several new areas of work.
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BEST FOR YOU
We will expand the digital platform to include a wealth of digital content created specifically to support young people and their families.
We plan to open our Day Service Unit which will provide a space for young people and their families
to get immediate mental health support without needing an appointment, including outpatient clinical care, therapies and family support. In tandem, we will also launch our community partnerships with a range of partners which will bridge the gap between the clinical and community setting to provide personalised care available for as long as required.
We will continue plans to create the Young People’s Rapid Assessment pathway at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital that integrates, for the
first time, medical care with mental health care to quickly and seamlessly assess, transfer and treat young people requiring help.
ARTS IN HEALTH
We are looking forward to extending our activities in the CW+ Studio
to different patient groups and introducing new workshops with
our community partners. We are launching a research project which will measure the impact of access to arts activities and virtual content has on patients who have been diagnosed with dementia.
We will continue to develop bespoke, digital innovations using the latest technology to create patient-centred environments. Works which are currently in development include the Immersive Healing Art System, by artist Zheyuan Zhang. This innovative, interactive digital art installation uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, sensors and facial scanning software to create bespoke artwork based
on a patient’s emotions. We are supporting Zheyuan Zhang with a PhD to explore the impact of digital interventions on patient wellbeing.
We are working with artist Min Young Kim and Heriot Watt University to develop an interactive digital plant, titled ‘Companion’. Patients will be able to interact with the plant and watch it grow based on AI sensors that react to real-time weather forecasts.
CW INNOVATION
We are looking to create a unique ‘Ideas Hub’ which will be a bespoke space where our CW Innovation team can work with clinical teams to discover and deliver innovations and improvements to care.
Our partnership with DigitalHealth. London (DH.L) will continue and we look forward to identifying and developing health innovations in our hospitals from the sixth cohort of applications from healthtech SMEs. We will also run a 12-month Horizon Fellowship Programme with DH.L to support Trust staff with their ideas for digital innovation projects to improve patient care and experience.
In partnership with Bristol Meyers Squibb, we will advance our portfolio of cardiology innovation. We will work on a machine learning algorithm called ‘PULsE-AI’ to explore detection and diagnosis of patients at risk of Atrial Fibrillation (AF), which in turn can reduce the risk of strokes.
In partnership with GE Healthcare, West Middlesex was the first hospital in the world to have the ambulatory telemetry system ‘Portrait’ installed. We will recruit cardiology patients to be part of an evaluation study of this equipment, to determine the benefits of continuous monitoring
of patients.
NHS CHARITIES TOGETHER
We have been selected as the lead charity within North West London for supporting COVID-19 recovery activities. Working with partners from across the region, we will be delivering three digital inclusion and innovation projects, which were identified through a competition we held in early 2021. In partnership with NHS Charities Together and the successful bidders, we will develop and deliver a programme and associated evaluation on ‘Supporting shielding and vulnerable people affected by COVID-19 through digital access to health, care and community resources’ over the next two years, with a view to scaling the programme throughout North West London and beyond.
BOARDS AND COMMITTEES
We would like to thank our boards and committee for their continued support.
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TRUSTEE BOARD:
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ART & DESIGN COMMITTEE:
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GRANTS COMMITTEE:
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FUNDRAISING GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE:
FINANCE AND INVESTMENT COMMITTEE:
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DEVELOPMENT BOARD:
BEST FOR YOU OVERSIGHT BOARD:
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INNOVATION ADVISORY GROUP:
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