£3 million funding boost for pioneering partnership

NHS England has announced that the Foundation Healthcare Group Vanguard – a partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust – will receive £3 million funding in the 2017-18 financial year.

This is £500,000 more than the funding provided by NHS England for the 2016-17 financial year.

The Foundation Healthcare Group has been set up to develop a sustainable local hospital model that makes best use of scarce resources and can be replicated across the NHS.

It aims to improve healthcare outcomes and access to high quality treatment for patients, be more cost effective, and meet the challenge of increased demand for services in Dartford and the surrounding area where significant population growth is expected over the coming years.

The Foundation Healthcare Group is focusing initially on three areas – children’s healthcare and services for adult patients with heart conditions and vascular problems (disease affecting the arteries and veins).

Gerard Sammon, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Strategy & Planning at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, said: “The increase in funding for our Foundation Healthcare Group Vanguard is great news for patients.

“It will allow us to continue to work with our partners at Guy’s and St Thomas’ to develop and improve the way we deliver care for patients, especially in the three areas we are focusing on initially.

“We are becoming increasingly able to offer sustainable local services supported by a level of clinical expertise not normally available to patients attending smaller hospitals.

“We are always striving to improve access, outcomes and experience for the patients in our care and make the very best, most cost-effective use of the funds we have available.”

Sarah Morgan, Director of Organisational Development at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, added: “We are one of the few vanguards to receive more funding for next financial year than the current financial year.

“This is an absolute credit to the hard work of staff at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Dartford and Gravesham who have shown such enthusiasm for working together in this new partnership in order to improve care for our patients.”

Samantha Jones, Director of NHS England’s New Care Models Programme, said: “2017/18 is a crucial year for the vanguards, in particular how we further spread their work across the wider NHS and care services. This funding will help them to continue to move at pace."