Get involved

Involving patients and their relatives or carers in our hospitals is one of the main ways we can make sure we offer the highest quality care.

Volunteer
We are always looking for friendly, enthusiastic and committed volunteers to help in our hospitals. There are currently around 450 volunteers helping to provide a range of vital services. If you are interested in joining the team, please go to our volunteering section.

Attend meetings
You can attend our public Trust board meetings, including our annual general meeting.

Local involvement networks (LINks)
Local involvement networks (LINks) are a new way to help monitor and shape health and social care. They 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 has its own LINk. The LINks that interact with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are:

Patient panels
Patient panels are an opportunity for patients, relatives and carers to meet with members of our hospital staff and discuss their views and experiences of our services. In 2005 we set up patient panels at Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital and Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospital. The panels make a valuable contribution to helping us plan changes and improve our services.

We are currently re-developing the panels in response to our new role as the UK’s first academic health science centre. Further information will be available shortly. 

Inpatient user groups
We regularly invite groups of inpatients to attend meetings with members of our staff to discuss aspects of their care and treatment. These groups provide a very useful way of getting on-going feedback from patients and carers. If problems are identified we can usually implement changes quickly.

For example, each month a selection of inpatients staying on the Lady Skinner ward in care for the elderly at Charing Cross Hospital are invited to meet with each other and staff for a social event and to give feedback on their care.

Education and recruitment
In some of our hospitals, patients are involved in recruitment and training of staff. For example, stroke patients are involved in stroke courses for health professionals, which are held five times a year. Patients share their experience as part of the training. Patients have also been involved in interviews for maternity nurses.

Contact
For further information about any aspect of patient and public involvement (PPI), or if you are interested in getting involved in some way, please contact us using the details below.

Karen Dobson
Address: Karen Dobson, PPI manager, Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8RF
Telephone: 020 3311 7597
Email: ppi@imperial.nhs.uk