In our introductory blog earlier this year, we set out our members’ role as anchor institutions, taking a broader view of the role providers play in improving the health and wellbeing of their local communities. In this Q&A, Roxanne Smith, Director of Strategy at King’s College Hospital, sits down with our Policy Fellow, Emily Hughes, to discuss the work King’s is driving forward to improve population health.
How does your role as an anchor organisation feature in the King’s 2021-26 strategy? How has this progressed since the strategy launch in July 2021?
King’s role as an anchor organisation sits at the heart of our five-year strategy, as reflected through the title – ‘Strong Roots, Global Reach’. There is commitment across the organisation to strengthening and deepening connections with our local community, as we recognise that this is key to improving health outcomes and reducing inequalities. Our people are enthusiastic and engaged with this agenda, and our board is deeply committed to driving forward initiatives that improve population health. At King’s, we know that we need to think about health differently – which means thinking about being a provider differently. We have established a steering group and programme of work covering all five anchor domains. This ensures that we’re harnessing the enthusiasm and energy from across the organisation, allowing everyone to contribute in their own way.
Anchor work at King’s touches upon all five domains identified by the Health Foundation, whereby organisations can make impactful change for their local communities. In which domain have you seen greatest impact?
To date, we’re particularly proud of our work in widening access to quality employment. We serve some of the most deprived areas in the country, and we know that locally there are thousands of unemployed people who would like to secure a good, stable job. The link between unemployment and poor health outcomes is well established, so this is strategically and morally critical for us. There are several elements to this work:
- We are London Living Wage Employer accredited, meaning all our directly and indirectly employed staff are paid at a level that should meet their everyday needs;
- We have partnered with project SEARCH, providing internships for young people with learning disabilities and/or autism. Interns gain a year’s worth of experience in different parts of the hospital, with placements assigned based on skills and interests. This had great success last year, and in September we will welcome an even bigger cohort;
- We run a successful apprenticeship programme, with around 200 apprentices joining us every year. We have ambitious targets to get this to 500 in years to come;
- We are strategically partnered with local councils, schools and colleges to set up visits and joint employer days to encourage young people to consider a career in healthcare;
- Supported by our charity, we have invested funds into developing work placement and volunteer projects for school-age participants, opening doors for young people who might not typically have access to work experience in healthcare settings.
King’s has highlighted differences in healthy life expectancy between and within its local boroughs. How will your anchor approach make a difference to healthy life expectancy?
The difference in healthy life expectancy is the reason we have no choice but to succeed with our anchor mission; we cannot accept these gaps. To really have an impact, however, we recognise that since only 20% of health is linked to clinical care, as a healthcare provider we have a responsibility to address the other 80% as much as we can.
As an organisation, we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint – our people care deeply about sustainability, as demonstrated by our 2,000 green champions. Air pollution levels are significant near some of our main sites and across many of our localities, so we are encouraging and prompting people to change their behaviour where possible. We are electrifying fleet vehicles, increasing the availability of cycle stations, and increasing awareness on the negative effects of air pollution. Through Do Nation, we are aiming to galvanise our people to submit at least 1,500 pledges across the organisation, emphasising that we all have a role to play in creating healthy communities.
Alongside other local anchor institutions, such as Guy’s and St Thomas’, we are a founding partner of SC1, London’s Life Science District, which is dedicated to innovation, partnership, and improving life for local and global communities. This will attract investment into the area, and create quality jobs locally. Research will be rooted in tackling health inequalities and improving population health, both within the area and beyond.
You’re already starting to work with an increasing number of local partners to help improve health outcomes – how do you see this evolving with the role of ICSs?
Within South-East London, we are seeing a real appetite for collaboration with the advent of ICSs earlier this year. It provides an opportunity for deeper partnership, and will benefit the anchor agenda in domains where collective action is more powerful – for example, improving air quality, and increasing social value in procurement. As we develop our ICS plan, addressing the wider determinants of health will have prominence within our collective work together; this could be through the Vital 5 framework, which looks to make improvements on five factors that have a major impact on health at an individual and population level.
The Vital 5
What does a successful Kings anchor organisation look like by 2026?
Success will look like strong and meaningful relationships with our communities and local partners, and a sense of King’s being deeply rooted in place. Our people will feel connected to our anchor mission, making it a defining feature of being a part of Team King’s. As our anchor work matures, we hope to see healthier local communities, as well as local people making up a larger proportion of our workforce. Over time, through building a strong evidence base, we can be bigger and bolder in our ambitions to put population health at the forefront of our agenda.