NHS North West London has approved a new, modern model of care for adults needing acute mental health support in Westminster and RBKC. This decision follows extensive public consultation and stakeholder engagement. Key points include: 

• permanently closing the inpatient wards at the Gordon Hospital
• maintaining and expanding community-based services
• enhancing  and retaining the Mental Health Crisis Assessment Service (MHCAS) at St Charles Hospital
• investing in five crisis and five step-down beds in the south of Westminster, jointly funded with Westminster City Council, focusing on supporting people experiencing homelessness 

This new model aims to support more people in the community, reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, and ensure beds are available for those who need them most.

The public consultation on community-based palliaitive care services has closed and we are awaiting the final consultation report from 3ST (3rd Sector Together). We attended the North West London Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee on 1 May 2025 to discuss the programme and consultation and answer any questions from members. The deadline for final comments from local government has been extended to 15 May, and any feedback will be incorporated into the report. Decision making will proceed later this year.

Find out more details about the meeting.

NHS North West London has issued an update on the ongoing Personal Health Assessments (PHAs) for survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire.  These assessments, developed based on clinical advice, include evaluations prioritising blood tests and chest x-rays. Further information can be found on the Grenfell website.

Survivors have the option to undergo their assessments with a local GP, London Medical Associates, or a private healthcare provider via the London Doctors Clinic. The assessments will be available until 16 May 2025, with flexibility to accommodate individual needs.

To date, 53 bookings have been made for PHAs, with 18 assessments completed. Further qualitative information will be provided in future updates as it becomes available.

Over 1,850 enhanced health checks delivered since 1 April 2024

Between April 2024 and January 2025, a total of 1,886 Enhanced Health Checks (EHCs) for individuals affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. These checks are designed to identify early signs of health issues and provide residents with an opportunity to discuss any concerns. The EHCs are part of a broader initiative to support the ongoing health and wellbeing of the Grenfell-affected community. Visit the Grenfell website to find out more.

NHS North West London completes comprehensive engagement for Future support services for those affected by Grenfell Tower fire

NHS North West London actively sought input on future services and support for those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. Engagement efforts included roundtable events, focus groups, and community meetings, with participation from 259 residents. Additionally, a survey garnered 195 responses. The collected information is being used to shape future health services and support for the affected individuals.

Our strategy for urgent and emergency care will go to the ICB Board in May. Furthermore, our Planned Care Strategy will go to the Strategic Commissioning Committee for initial discussion during that same month.

The West London Borough team have established a close working relationship with RBKC’s Digital Inclusion team as part of the K&C Digital Inclusion Partnership. We are delighted to see our local partnership is featured in the national plan as a local best practice case study.  

March’s Digital Inclusion Partnership Board, Chaired by Joe McGale, Assistant Director of Place – West London on behalf of the NHS and was an excellent opportunity to showcase local work to promote Digital Inclusion, including West-Hill Health PCN’s NHS App ‘Genius Bar’ Roadshow and the role of Neighbourhood Navigators in Brompton Health PCN to actively support residents with their Digital needs. Colleagues from NHS North West London team shared updates on the NHS App and Know Diabetes and the wider online prevention offer across north west London, including the benefits of ReachDeck for populations where English isn’t their first language.

From September 2024 to March 2025, NHS North West London carried out a range of communications activity to deliver key messages that are particularly relevant during the colder months: seasonal vaccination, access to NHS services (right care, right place) and effective self-care. As part of our paid activity we commissioned advertising on billboards, bus stops, in gyms and leisure centres, in council magazines, on social media, Google, Spotify and local radio. We also provided funding to 37 organisations across north west London to share messages and engage with communities at local level – from this we have received vital feedback to inform our activity and messaging in the future. 

This campaign resulted in over two million views and/or listens to key NHS messages through these different mediums. Our winter webpages with information about flu, Covid-19, NHS services and self-care guidance received more than 21,000 views; we drove 168,000 people to NHS 111 and 14,000 to talking therapies. Through community engagement we reached more than 12,000 people, delivering information through trusted voices to some of our most underserved communities.

The 2025/26 Health Inequalities Transformation (HIT) funding has now been allocated. Five new schemes are progressing to business case stage, focused on asthma, heart health, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), sickle cell, and translation services. Three more are in development. An evaluation of HIT funding is near completion, capturing good practice and identifying cross-cutting themes to show how the funding is helping to reduce health inequalities. A cross-system workshop is being planned to share this learning.

On 4 April 2025, the In-Reach Model System Launch Workshop brought together partners from all eight north west London boroughst shape the next stage of implementation. The workshop demonstrated strong energy and collaboration across the system, working with community leadership to build momentum for the delivery of five community-based hubs to improve access and outcomes for Black communities across NW London. 

How would you envision your borough's in-reach hub? Complete the feedback form.

We are excited to announce the launch of the North West London Evaluation Toolkit. This new system-wide resource is designed to support project evaluation, impact measurement, and continuous improvement across the region. Watch a webinar about the toolkit and download the slides. 

A new Population Health and Health Equity Outcomes Report, by Rachel Christie published 18 March, provides an overview of key outcomes and priorities from the health equity programme. The report highlights four key objectives:

• Extending healthy life expectancy for people in the most deprived communities 
• Reducing preventable deaths, ensuring equitable health outcomes across socio-economic groups
• Empowering communities to manage their own health and improve quality of life
• Enhancing healthcare access and experience for those facing the greatest barriers.

Read the full report.

To help increase the uptake of preventative health services from Hounslow residents who do not speak English as their first language, targeted health engagement was delivered in collaboration with three places of worship over four weeks. These were:

• Lakshmi Narayan Temple, Hounslow
• Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara
• Jamia Mosque and Islamic centre.

NHS North West London delivered this activity in conjunction with the Hounslow Health Outreach Team, PCN representatives, Immunisation co-ordinator, mental health colleagues and teams from Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial Healthcare NHS Trist. Health engagement at each event focused on: providing information on breast screening; vaccination and information, blood pressures checks and more.

Discussions were provided in Hindi, Punjabi, Gujrati, Bengali and English. 

More than 300 residents engaged in conversations. The programme received positive feedback from faith centres, residents and clinicians. NHS North West London will now deliver this programme every two months at each faith setting.

The latest Communications and Involvement summary for March is now available, highlighting how NHS North West London continues to work closely with local communities to improve health outcomes and access to care.

Throughout the month, a number of successful engagement activities took place across our boroughs. In Hounslow, more than 150 people attended a health event at the Lakshmi Narayan Hindu Temple, supported by local health partners including public health, primary care and mental health teams.

Other highlights include a tea and talk session with Somali women in Brent, focused on Human papillomavirus infection (HPV) and screening. Attendees openly shared cultural and community barriers around FGM and screening uptake and emphasised the need for regular conversations within the community to help build trust and understanding. Learn about more successes.

Since the approval of the NHS North West London Estates Infrastructure and Sustainability strategies in December 2024, work continues across the North West London ICS to determine Integrated Neighbourhood Team (INT) requirements and interim plans following changes to the New Hospital Programme. 

NHS North West London continue to work with Estates Directors to identify and mitigate the increased risk of infrastructure failure arising from the highest backlog maintenance in the UK (at £769.4m) growing further. This is likely to have an impact on the existing pressure on primary and community services to support delivery via alternative models of care in the community such as INTs and the required pace of delivery necessary to mitigate the risk.

Work progresses with ICS partners to inform local authority Local Plans and their respective Infrastructure Delivery Plans (IDPs). The current boroughs of focus are the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham. Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) bids for Hounslow were submitted in December 2024, with NHS North West London Estates successfully securing £524K of additional CIL to support works at Heart of Hounslow, a joint venture with West London Trust. Further CIL bids are being progressed to fund estates related projects in the Feltham and Brentford areas in light of population change and vast development. Discussions are currently underway with Brent and RBKC local authorities around bidding for additional CIL funding to enable projects identified under the strategy and mitigate the impact of population growth across boroughs.

A review of historic rates reimbursements recovery is in motion.This is expected to deliver a significant financial return to the NHS North West London which will be ring-fenced and reinvested back into primary care-related estates initiatives.

The Estates Team continues to meet regularly with NHS property companies to undertake audits and review occupancy, lease management and charging across all sites. Feasibility and utilisation studies are commencing at Jubilee Gardens, St Charles, Heart of Hounslow, Willesden Centre for Health and The Meadows, some of our costliest and underutilised estate, to explore new opportunities for optimisation and reducing significant ‘void’ costs.

Estates projects which have completed or are due to complete in Q4 (24/5) and Q1 (25/6) include the Hillcrest Surgery relocation and refurbishment (Feb 2025 - Ealing), the handback of Wealdstone Centre for Health (completed Jan 2025 – Harrow), the Chiswick Health Centre Rebuild and handback of Stamford Brook Centre for Health (Mar 2025 – Hounslow), expansion of primary care and reduction in underutilised space at Grand Union Village (May 2025 - Ealing), and the delivery of a new primary care facility in South Kilburn, which will replace a residential GP site (May 25 - Brent). Furthermore, we have sublet some of the meeting rooms in the central NHS North West London head office.

A national decision has been made to reduce ICB budgets by 50%. This week, the Department of Health and Social Care shared a model ‘blueprint’ for future ICBs, outlining the functions they retain, adapt and transfer elsewhere. While the blueprint has not been published, we have shared it with our staff and partners and we are now looking at it in detail to understand its implications for NHS North West London. We are expected to propose a draft operating model to NHS England by the end of May, followed by a staff consultation and new structures being agreed by the end of December. This is a challenging timescale and it will be our major focus for the next few months.

Following last year’s 30% reduction in running costs, this is a difficult time for our staff and we have appreciate the supportive messages from colleagues in other parts of the system.

The ICS achieved a small surplus position for 2024/25, thanks to the hard work across the system to address financial challenges and areas of overspend. 

In elective recovery, in 2024/5, there has been a sustained reduction in patients waiting the longest for treatments, with the those waiting 78 weeks for treatment reduced by 60%, and those waiting for 65 weeks reduced by 78% and 52 weeks reduced by 24%. The target for 2025/26 is for the percentage of patients waiting less than 18 weeks for elective treatment to be no more than 65% nationally. Every trust will need to deliver a minimum 5 percentage point improvement by March 2026.

In February, 38% of patients with a mental health condition in Emergency Department (ED) (32% in December) waited over 12 hours for admission compared to 13.4% of physical health patients. Delays in discharging from mental health beds largely due to patients waiting for supported housing and social care placements, continue to impact on system pressures.

People with potentially serious conditions (category 2) waited on average 31 minutes 52 seconds for an ambulance in February. The London Ambulance Service winter plan included an escalation protocol to support improved handover times to support category 2 performance. The category 1 average waiting time, life threatening injuries and illnesses including cardiac arrest, was six minutes and thirty-four seconds compared to a seven-minute target. 

When compared with other ICBs, we had the best performance in England in March for four-hour waits (80.2%). 

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have reported positively on arrangements for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Brent. The recently published SEND Inspection Report highlights areas of good practice, progress and a strong leadership team delivering exceptional care in supporting SEND needs.