Our clinical strategy
Our clinical priorities describe how services will deliver the strategy over the next five years.
The way we’ll work
Working as one Trust
We will work as one Trust wherever this improves care. Reduce variation while maintaining strong place-based relationships.
QEH and UHL are less than five miles apart but serve different communities, operate from different estates and work with different local partners.
Full standardisation is neither always possible nor desirable, but our proximity offers opportunities to share expertise, tackle common challenges and improve pathways with south east London partners.
Epic will support shared patient lists and more consistent waiting times. We will use it to strengthen clinical and operational networks across our sites.
Partnerships
We will work with people who use our services, GPs, the Integrated Care Board, NHS providers, local authorities and the voluntary sector. Strong partnerships across our boroughs and south east London will support smoother pathways, personalised care and sustainable services.
Embedding and expanding research
LGT is an established south London research partner, with a strong record in National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Portfolio studies despite being a non-specialist provider.
Research improves outcomes, supports recruitment and retention, and speeds access to innovation. LGT, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) and Oxleas are hosting south London’s NIHR Commercial Research Delivery Centre, creating an opportunity to expand commercial research.
We will widen research participation and increase Principal Investigators through the Associate PI Scheme, mentoring and support across career stages.
Investigator‑led research enables clinicians to explore local priorities, and the Trust has supported several grant awards. We remain committed to expanding this area of our portfolio.
In 2024-25, the Trust opened 34 research projects and recruited 1,094 participants, with income of £954,829 from R&D networks and £197,193 in investigator income. Improving inclusion in research remains a core focus, to ensure that research reflects the diversity of the population we serve.
The right model will vary by service. Options include:
- Increased collaboration through existing structures - from mutual aid to support peaks of activity, shared specialist referral advice and patient lists or coproducing shared clinical best practice
- Joint leadership or formal structures - for example some of our services already have joint leadership arrangements, but continue to deliver at both sites
- Consolidation at one-site or another - we expect this may be an option for a
small number of services to consider, or to consider distribution of particular functions across sites, but we are clear this is not specified as the default for the majority of our clinical services.