Overview
Building healthier communities
Guy’s and St Thomas’ supports our communities to be healthier and to thrive. We influence the health and wellbeing of local people as a healthcare provider, and also through our wider role in the community.
We're one of the largest local employers, with over 23,000 staff and spend more than £600 million a year on goods and services. This contribution to the local economy means we can make a real difference to local people in many ways. This is sometimes referred to as being an ‘anchor organisation’.
How we're anchored in our communities
Our support for our communities focuses on having an even greater impact on the things that make us healthy.
We're working with local partners and our communities to:
- widen access to quality work and training
- reduce our environmental impact
- make sure more of our spending benefits local people
- use our buildings and spaces to support communities
- attract local investment in innovation and technology
Working with partners for healthier communities
People in our local communities have different experiences of health and wellbeing. The difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in Lambeth and Southwark can be up to 12 years. Both Lambeth and Southwark have higher-than-average rates of preventable death from major conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
We are working to tackle these health inequalities through our services, specialist expertise, research and wider impact.
We work with a wide range of health and care organisations, local councils, research organisations, patients and voluntary organisations to understand and support our communities’ health and care needs.
Our influence in numbers
- 4 boroughs: we are anchored in the diverse London communities of Lambeth, Southwark, Chelsea and Westminster, and Hillingdon
- 3 million patient contacts each year across our hospitals and in the community
- 23,700 staff work in our hospitals, community services and research centres
- At any time, we are training over 500 doctors in training, 1,000 nursing and midwifery students in clinical placements, and 1,100 allied health professional students
- £600 million a year spent on goods and services
- £266 million invested in improving our buildings, facilities and equipment over the past 5 years
- 350,000 m2: the area covered by our buildings, land and services across London, the size of 50 football pitches