What is an AHSC?

An academic health science centre (AHSC) is a partnership between a healthcare provider and a university.

The AHSC model is well established in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands.

In June 2008 the UK government published a report, High quality care for all, which sets out its vision for the NHS over the next ten years. It included a commitment to develop a number of AHSCs in England, with the purpose of taking new discoveries and promoting their application in the NHS and across the world.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was created on 1 October 2007, by merging Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and St Mary's NHS Trust. The new Trust and Imperial College London formed a unique partnership and together they became the UK's first AHSC. On 9 March 2009, we received official recognition as an AHSC from the UK government.
Read more about our AHSC application

You can read more about academic health science centres on the Our NHS, our future website, which contains information about the future of the NHS.

Academic health science centres (AHSCs) are a new approach to healthcare in the UK, bringing a university and the NHS together and running them hand-in-hand to provide the best healthcare in the world, free at the point of delivery.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London came together in October 2007 to create the UK's first AHSC.

Our AHSC will have significant benefits for our patients, staff, students and local population. It will also have wider benefits as we take new discoveries and promote their application in the NHS and across the world.

Patients and our local population

Our vision is that the quality of life of our patients and local populations will be vastly improved by taking the discoveries that we make and translating them into medical advances. We will continue to serve our local and national patient base with a broad range of services.

In five years' time we want both our patient treatment outcomes and satisfaction scores to match those of the best international healthcare providers. We will also work with local care providers to improve our patients' experience of care from before hospital to aftercare at home.

We will develop a new approach to public health and primary care, with the goal of keeping people in good health and preventing illness.

Staff and students

We need all our staff to be inspired to share in making discoveries and finding new ways of treating patients. We are tearing down institutional barriers to enable this to happen and creating new opportunities for all our staff to progress their careers and become leaders of their fields.

We are dedicated to fostering a supportive learning culture that will take a broad view of education and work from undergraduate level through to postgraduate and ongoing training and development for all healthcare professionals.