The head of the UK’s first collaborative business venture between the NHS and academia has heavily criticised the reluctance of universities to get involved in health and boost patient care and outcomes.
Professor Stephen Smith, who is chief executive and principal of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Britain’s first academic health science centre (AHSC), was speaking at the annual conference of the NHS Confederation, held in Manchester last week. Academic health science centres aim to speed up the translation of academic research into better and more effective treatment for patients.
“It is extremely unfortunate that universities didn’t think it was important to get involved with health,” said Professor Smith. “Translational medicine is the name of the game.”
The consequent innovations gap was “something we should all be ashamed of,” he claimed; it resulted in a clear cost to patients as well as the local and national economy.
Britain had poorer health outcomes than other comparable economies, despite heavy investment in the NHS and the fact that it was ranked second only to the United States for the quality of its biomedical research, Professor Smith said. According to the World Health Organization, Britain was at the bottom of the league table for mortality attributable to healthcare in 2002-3.
“We spend the same amount [on healthcare] as the French,” he said. “But every single kid born today has a 40% greater chance of dying from a preventable cause before the age of 75 than kids in France.”
The 18 top US hospitals for patient outcomes, which Johns Hopkins leads, are all academic health science centres, said Professor Smith.
Britain’s first AHSC was formed last October as a fully integrated, rather than a confederated, organisation. It comprises Imperial College London and five major hospital trusts in south and west London and aims, through integrating health services with teaching and research, to provide substantial benefits for patients.
Manchester AHSC, comprising seven organisations including Salford Primary Care Trust and the Christie Hospital, was set up just a fortnight ago.
And London is set to have a second large academic health science centre made up of King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College, and South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.
The concept has attracted some criticism on the grounds that the UK centres are concentrated in too small a geographical area, there are too few of them—only six are planned—and they could skew research funding.
John Balazs, a GP in Stockwell, south London, was unconvinced. “They will improve technology in hospitals, and will be good for institutions, but what benefit will they bring to preventive care or community based services?” he asked.
