Visiting Professional Programmes

Introduction

Located in the heart of London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is an organisation of high pedigree with a proud history going back over 900 years. Our clinical services are delivered from three of London’s best known hospitals, Guy’s Hospital, St Thomas’ Hospital and Evelina London Children’s Hospital (which has recently been rated ‘outstanding’ by the United Kingdom’s Care Quality Commission).

As one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe and one of the leading hospitals in the world – in terms of number of patient contacts, clinicians trained and research conducted and adopted in practice – we have developed world class services in a number of specialities. Few, if any, medical organisations in the world can match Guy’s and St Thomas’ capabilities in terms of the breadth of clinical services we provide or the depth of expertise within each of our clinical services.

The Trust provides a full range of services, as well as specialist services including cancer, cardiothoracic, women and children’s services, kidney care and orthopaedics. Guy’s is a major centre for cancer and renal services with the UK’s largest kidney donor programme, and is also a leading centre for genetics, stem cell and allergy research. St Thomas’ is a leading centre for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, stroke, HIV and dermatology. Evelina London is the second largest provider of chil-dren’s services in London. The Trust has one of the largest critical care units in the UK and one of the busiest A&E departments in London. It has an annual turnover of £1.2 billion and employs 13,500 staff.

In 2016 the Trust handled more than 2 million patient contacts including:

• 1.03 million outpatients• 83,000 inpatients• 85,000 day case patients• 184,000 accident and emergency attendances

• 866,000 in community services• And delivered 6,800 babies

NHS statistics show that our patient survival rates are nearly 25 per cent better than the national average. This is one of the lowest standardised mortality rates in the NHS and provides an important indication of the quality of care provided by our clinical staff.

Leading In Innovation

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is widely recognised as being at the forefront of patient care, academic research and clinical teaching with the ability to attract internationally renowned consultants, technical specialists, clinical teachers and research staff.

We provide the full range of clinical specialties across three hospital sites, all of which enjoy access to cutting-edge technology and facilities.

Our history of innovation includes:

• Conductingthefirstbloodtransfusionin1818• Tissue typing was invented at Guy’s in 1937• Firstartificialintraocularlensimplantationaftercataractsurgeryin1949• First ‘bleep’ system for locating and notifying doctors in 1953• ConductingthefirstkidneytransplantinsouthThamesin1967• First European public hospital to use Da Vinci robots to treat skin cancer in 2001• Pioneering live kidney transplants in the United Kingdom using robots in 2005• BecomingthefirstRoboticSurgeryInstituteintheUnitedKingdomin2014• Pioneering the South London Integrated Care Programme• Carrying out 459 research trials in 2014-15, more than any other NHS Trust in London

Educational Excellence

Excellence in education and training for healthcare professionals, students and support staff is at the heart of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. With our internationally renowned teaching hospitals, we are committed to developing a healthcare workforce of the highest quality. This is vital to ensuring that our workforce remains skilled and equipped to deliver improvements in healthcare, and also for training and educating the next generation of clinicians and academics.

Training our staff and students in research techniques and methodologies is also important for achieving research excellence. We:

• provide world-class, innovative education and training in a wide range of health disciplines andcreate a culture in which learning is informed by research

• train and develop the entire workforce, including nurturing future leaders• giveopportunitiestostudentswhohavethetalent,butnotnecessarilytheeducationalqualifications,

to pursue careers in healthcare disciplines• impact upon our local communities by increasing patient access to information• affect a cultural shift in educational practices towards learning techniques that include the best,

proven technological developments.

Those training at Guy’s and St Thomas’ receive some of the best medical education in the country. We are one of the largest postgraduate medical education centres with over 500 doctors in training, including foundation doctors, core medical trainees, core surgical trainees and specialist trainees at any one time. The academic component is provided by King’s College London (KCL) and the clinical teaching compo-nent is provided by Guy’s and St Thomas’. Our partnership with KCL also means that we can integrate KCL accredited academia when setting up bespoke programmes.

What we offerGuy’s and St Thomas’ prides itself on its clinical services, its education and its research portfolios. As part of its education portfolio, Guy’s and St Thomas’ is pleased to offer Visiting Professional Programmes (VPPs) for clinicians – including doctors, nurses and allied health professionals.

Our Visiting Professional Programmes (VPPs) have been created for clinicians who wish to observe clinical practice and experience Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in operation as a London teaching hospital in the UK.

These programmes offer a range of practice models from observation to hands-on clinical practice and canbetailoreddependingontheexperienceandqualificationsofthecliniciansinvolved.Programmesrange from four weeks to 12 months.

During the placements, clinicians will observe and participate in a range of tailored activities.

These include:

• Clinics and ward rounds• Observing surgery in a day care and main theatre setting• Observing clinical trials• Participation in weekly multidisciplinary meetings• Participation in bespoke projects• Attending educational study days run by the relevant departments

By ensuring that visiting clinicians are fully at ease in their surroundings and made to feel a part of the team, our VPPs provide a complete experience which maximises learning outcomes and provides significantopportunitiesforpersonaldevelopment.

A unique focus of our Visiting Professional Programme is the opportunity for Visiting Professionals (VPs) to be totally integrated within the clinical department. Placements will be delivered in the workplace with doctors receiving one to one supervision and direction whilst based in the clinic or day-case environment to ensure all learning and development needs and expectations are met. Visiting Professionals will meet with their clinical supervisor regularly.

VPPs are excellent opportunities for fostering two-way learning, and can support lifelong professional associations. We encourage an open and engaged culture among our own clinicians to ensure that the mutualbenefitsofworkingalongsidehigh-calibreoverseascliniciansarerealised.

At the end of the placement, Guy’s and St Thomas’ would undertake a full evaluation of the programme to ensure that we feed back any recommendations into our future planning. Every visiting professional will alsoreceiveacertificateoncompletionoftheirprogramme.

“As a clinical observer in obstetric medicine I had the opportunity of witnessing the management of a wide variety of complex maternal medicine patients. The high standard of

clinical care and unique expertise of the obstetricians and obstetric physicians has inspired me. I aim to use my experience to help improve maternal care in my home country.”

Trainee physician from Portugal, 6 month observership in Obstetric Medicine

Our programmesVPPs are offered in a range of clinical specialities and at varying levels of complexity across Guy’s and St Thomas’.

The following departments are currently accepting applications:

• Accident & Emergency • Assisted Conception Unit• Adult & Paediatric Allergy• Anaesthetics• Cardiology• Cleft• Clinical Genetics• Dental• Dermatology• Dermatopathology• Gynaecology• Haematology• LaneFoxRespiratoryUnit• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit• Nursing• Obstetric Medicine• Orthopaedics• Pharmacy – Clinical• Pharmacy – Paediatric• Paediatric Intensive Care Unit• Paediatric Metabolic Medicine• PaediatricRheumatology• Paediatric Urology• RenalandTransplantMedicine• RenalTransplantSurgery• RheumatologyandLupus• Sexual Health and HIV• Sleep• Therapies• Vascular Surgery

IfyouwouldliketoknowmoreaboutourVPPs,orifyouareinterestedinvisitingaspecificclinicalareaor department not listed above, please get in touch by emailing vpp@gstt.nhs.uk.

“The experience was great and I learnt a lot as the skill set was completely new to me. What makes Lane Fox really strong and the experience really good is the team and how they

work together. It’s very rewarding when you work with a good team and you’re part of that team helping to make a positive change.”

DoctorfromSingapore,6monthattachmentontheLaneFoxRespiratoryprogramme

Our history

Guy’s and St Thomas’ are amongst the oldest hospitals in the world, having endured the Black Death, theplague,theWaroftheRoses,theGreatFireofLondonandtheBlitz.Longbeforetheywerebroughttogether as a single NHS Hospital Trust in April 1993, the two hospitals had shared centuries of working together.

The remarkable beginnings

The history of our hospitals began in 1170 with an assassination. Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury was slaughtered by the King’s knights in his own cathedral after a fallout with Henry II. AfterhismurderhewasmadeamartyrandmonksataSouthwarkinfirmaryrenamedtheirhospitalinhis memory. St Thomas’ was born.

St Thomas’

ThefirstStThomas’wasacharitablehospitalwithonly40beds.TheoriginalsitewasknownasStMary’sOverie, and it existed decades before 1170. The original site is where Southwark Cathedral, near today’s Guy’s Hospital, now stands. It was run by Augustinian monks.

In the 16th century King Henry VIII closed down all monastic institutions, including St Thomas’, and took their wealth. He planned to refound St Thomas’ due to the number of sick and dying on the streets of London, but he died before he signed the Bill. His son Edward reopened it in 1555 on the condition that it no longer took its name from the Catholic saint St Thomas Becket and instead honoured St Thomas the Apostle.

As London grew, so did the hospital. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, the streets around the

hospital were breeding grounds for disease and many children died before the age of two.

By the late 18th century the powerful railway companies won the right to build London Bridge station onpart of thehospital’s site.Eventually, andafter temporarily relocating its patients toanold zoo in Kennington, St Thomas’ was rebuilt to its present location opposite the Houses of Parliament. This move coincided with Florence Nightingale’s return from the Crimean war, who influenced the design of St Thomas’ by ensuring that the ward environment had high ceilings and was big and airy in order to help patients feel better.

Guy’s

Thomas Guy was a very wealthy governor and benefactor of St Thomas’. He leased some neighbouring landtobuildoneoftheworld’sfirstinstitutionsforthecareofthe‘incurablyillandhopelesslyinsane’. Sadly Thomas Guy died a month before Guy’s Hospital opened in 1725. He is buried in the crypt underneath Guy’s Chapel. Before his death he gave the hospital his entire fortune. This generous gift was so big that it allowed the hospital to run for nearly two centuries until the NHS came into existence in 1948.

As Guy’s expanded from its original 60 beds into a major hospital, it retained close links with St Thomas’, particularly through the joint medical school that the hospitals shared.

The schools separated in 1825 and were reunited as the United Medical and Dental Schools in 1982. Guy’s Hospital remains on its original site at London Bridge.

Surviving World War II

Westminster was a prime target for enemy bombers during World War II and the bridge end of St Thomas’ was badly damaged. The old court room at Guy’s was destroyed. Although ten members of staff died during the bombing, not one single patient was killed. Such was the determination of the staff to treat people locally, A&E never closed. The names of the staff members who died during the War are recorded in the Chapel at St Thomas’.

The birth of the NHS

Three years after the end of World War II, the NHS was created. Guy’s and St Thomas’ saw their biggest changesformorethan200yearswhentheywerebroughtunderpubliccontrolforthefirsttimeintheirhistory. From now on they were publically accountable.

Two became one

Foryearsthetwogreathospitalswerefiercerivals,oneclaimingsuperiorityovertheother.Overtime,they began to work more closely together and in the early 1990s a Government review recommended that the hospitals merge. In 1993 Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust was created and in 2004 we became one oftheUK’sfirstNHSFoundationTrusts.

Charitable roots

When the NHS was created, two separate organisations called the Special Trustees managed the donations for the two hospitals. When they merged in 1993, the two charitable funds came together to form Guy’s and St Thomas Charitable Foundation. It became known as Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity in 2005 when we received Foundation Trust status.

“The Visiting Professional Programme fully reached my expectations and was a very enriching experience for me, and I learned some new things to take back to my country. The

clinicians I worked with helped to make my placement a positive experience. The most important thing I have learned is organisation in the day care unit and the prevention of allergies.”

Doctor from Spain; 13 weeks on the Paediatric Allergy programme

Find out more

Please visit our website

www.guysandstthomasevents.co.uk/vpp

tofindoutmoreaboutourprogrammes.

Copyright © Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust 2017. All rights reserved.

No part of this document may be reproduced without written consent from the author

“My time spent here was fantastic and the team were lovely. I’ve learned a lot from different disciplines. In particular, there is certainly a lot of clinical knowledge and experience

and some things we could learn from the Evelina model to implement back home. I felt that the programme was excellent as a whole and very useful.”

Pharmacist from Hong Kong, 6 weeks on the Paediatric Pharmacy programme