Working in partnership

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust works in partnership with a number of local services. In this section you can find information about how we work with the following:

  • Hammersmith and Fulham Primary Care Trust (PCT)
  • Westminster PCT
  • Hammersmith and Fulham centres for health (Partnership for Health)
  • Local involvement networks (LINks)

You can get details of our service agreements and requirements for interprovider referrals through the links on the left. Information about additional partnerships will be added shortly.

Hammersmith and Fulham PCT
The PCT provides a range of community healthcare services, many of which are run in partnership with our hospital teams to help ensure patients get all the care they need before, during and after a visit to one of our hospitals.

Stroke and trauma services
In 2009 the NHS held a consultation on plans to transform the care of stroke and major trauma patients in London. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Hammersmith and Fulham PCT were both involved in the consultation. Following the consultation, St Mary’s Hospital was selected as a major trauma centre (MTC) and Charing Cross Hospital was selected to provide a hyper-acute stroke unit (HASU).

Walk-in centre
The PCT’s walk-in centre staff work from two locations in Hammersmith and Fulham – Parsons Green walk-in centre and alongside our accident and emergency (A&E) team at Charing Cross Hospital in the urgent care centre (UCC).

Having the walk-in centre team alongside the A&E team means patients who come to Charing Cross Hospital for immediate help can be seen by the most appropriate clinician. The walk-in centre nurse practitioners are highly skilled nurses and can treat a wide range of minor injuries and illnesses. GPs from our local co-operative are also employed by the PCT to work in the UCC, seeing a wide range of primary care problems.

There is also a primary care adviser who can register patients with local GPs. This helps to keep waiting times down and means the A&E specialists can concentrate on patients arriving with serious or life-threatening problems.

Diabetes services
Together with the PCT we jointly fund a diabetes nurse consultant. The nurse consultant has a very specialist role and takes the lead on supporting patients with diabetes with the most complex health problems. The nurse consultant also trains other staff, both within the hospital and in community nursing teams and local GP surgeries. This is helping to improve the overall quality of care available to all patients with diabetes in Hammersmith and Fulham.

Community rehabilitation services
The PCT’s rehabilitation teams work very closely with our therapy staff and a range of consultants. They help people to return home as quickly as possible after an accident or illness, providing the rehabilitation people need either in their own homes or in a community residential unit.

Stop smoking services
The NHS stop smoking service in Hammersmith and Fulham is run by the PCT but we have a number of staff trained as stop smoking advisers who run courses in our hospitals. The maternity unit at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital works particularly hard with pregnant women who smoke to help them give up as quickly as possible. We are keen to work with the PCT to promote the benefits of giving up smoking to ensure patients get the most benefit from our care.

District nursing
After an operation many people, particularly older people, need on-going help from the PCT’s district nurses. We work closely with the local district nursing teams to make sure the support is arranged before they leave hospital. District nurses are also taking on services that were previously only available in hospital, for example, intravenous antibiotics, home subcutaneous infusion and warfarin management. This means patients can go home earlier.

For more general information about local services, go to the Hammersmith and Fulham PCT website.

Westminster PCT
The Trust works closely with Westminster PCT on several projects, services and initiatives.

Stop smoking services
The Trust has collaborated with Westminster PCT to provide stop smoking services to the local community for several years. The chest and allergy department at St Mary's Hospital hosts smoking cessation clinics run by the PCT and we have a member of the PCT's smoking cessation team based at St Mary's to facilitate support to patients on our wards, in particular our pregnant smokers. In addition, the Trust has a smoking cessation nurse specialist who runs her own clinics.

Early supportive rehabilitation
The Trust operates a joint project with the PCT to facilitate early discharge from St Mary's Hospital by providing intensive rehabilitation in a patient's home environment. The early supportive rehabilitation team is led by a consultant geriatrician with a specialist interest in orthopaedic medicine. The rest of the team includes physiotherapists, occupational therapists and rehabilitation assistants.

Westminster comprehensive assessment and treatment service (WestCHATS)
The Trust and PCT work together to provide clinic services for elderly patients at a community facility in Westminster. Follow-up care is provided at patients' homes by a dedicated team including a physiotherapist, a rehabilitation assistant and a nurse.

For more general information about local services, go to the Westminster PCT website.

Hammersmith and Fulham centres for health (Partnership for Health)
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is part of a consortium called Partnership for Health that runs two London-based polyclinics: the Hammersmith centre for health (based at Hammersmith Hospital) and the Fulham centre for health (based at Charing Cross Hospital). The centres are commissioned by Hammersmith and Fulham PCT.

Local involvement networks (LINks)
Local involvement networks (LINks) are a new way to help monitor and shape health and social care. They will allow a local community to express what they want from local services and feed these views back to those responsible for delivering the services. Each local authority that provides social services in England will have its own LINk. The LINks that will be interacting with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are:
• Charing Cross, Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea hospitals: Hammersmith and Fulham LINk
• St Mary's and Western Eye hospitals: Westminster LINk