South London Healthcare NHS Trust was established in April 2009 as a merger of three main acute general hospitals: Queen Elizabeth Woolwich; Queen Mary’s Sidcup; and Princess Royal Bromley. Covering a patient population of more than 850,000 from Bromley, Greenwich and Bexley (BBG), the new Trust’s main objectives were to tackle a legacy of safety and financial challenges. With nearly 6,000 staff and an annual income of £500million, it is one of the largest NHS trusts in England.
The Trust has implemented a major service reconfiguration in the past year based on a large public consultation in South London which made a clinical case to concentrate emergency and maternity on fewer sites with more specialist clinical staff to deliver high quality and clinically safe services.