New academic health science partnership

Imperial College London is establishing ties with numerous healthcare providers in North West London including approximately eleven NHS Trust hospitals and institutions. The new Academic Health Science Partnership (AHSP), to be launched in April 2012, aims to improve the health and care of the local population of 1.9 million people.

The AHSP will facilitate collaborative approaches between primary, secondary, tertiary, community and mental healthcare providers as well as the academic community at Imperial. For example, there will be greater opportunities to conduct clinical trials at a large and meaningful scale and to apply research findings to benefit a greater number of patients. The AHSP could also take a leading role in training and educating healthcare professionals.

The idea of developing the AHSP has been formulated by Professor Lord Ara Darzi, Head of the Division of Surgery at Imperial, and formerly Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health.

He said, “The partners involved in developing the AHSP face many common challenges but have one unifying goal: to bring the highest quality care to the people of North West London. By focusing on our strengths and systematically implementing what is known across the partnership about providing the best clinical care through innovation, we should achieve much more than we could apart. Our simple ambition is to use all of our academic and clinical expertise to improve the quality of care for our North West London population as a whole.”

Lord Darzi is to lead a Transitional Partnership Board that will confirm the membership of a number of healthcare providers and establish the organisational and legal structure of the AHSP. The Board will also include members such as Sir Keith O’Nions, Rector of Imperial, Chief Executives of the NHS Trusts and a GP representative.

O’Nions said, “Lord Darzi has developed a convincing vision for achieving higher quality care for patients through innovation, and for strengthening Imperial’s links with healthcare providers across North West London, opening new doors for all. He has achieved widespread support for his proposals and I look forward to working with the other partners to shape the AHSP.”