Introducing Barts and The London

World-renowned teaching hospitals

Barts in The City (Britain’s oldest hospital – founded 1123), The Royal London in Whitechapel (founded 1740), and The London Chest in Bethnal Green (founded 1848) are home to more than 7,800 staff, including some of Britain’s leading specialists. 

St Bartholomew's, The Royal London and The London Chest Hospitals

The hospitals’ full portfolio of specialist centres includes the country’s biggest heart attack centre, leading edge cancer specialties, one of the UK’s largest children’s hospitals and a highly successful fertility centre. Home to London’s air ambulance, Barts and The London is also one of the capital’s leading trauma and emergency care centres, offering surgical expertise that also benefits patients requiring more routine procedures.

The two million people of east London

Our leading specialist services care for patients from throughout the UK, although most of our 784,554 annual attendances are patients living locally.  We cover Europe’s most diverse communities – from the wealthy financial districts of the City and Canary Wharf to some of Britain’s most deprived areas.

Outstanding contribution to modern medicine

The history of modern medicine - from the discovery of the circulation of blood to stem cell research

Our three hospitals have made and continue to make an outstanding contribution to modern medicine. Our leading specialists continue a long tradition of clinical excellence.

The history of modern medicine can be traced through many pioneering work of their eminent predecessors, who include William Harvey (who discovered the circulation of the blood in 1628), Parkinson (Parkinson’s Disease), Langdon-Down (Down’s Syndrome) and Barnardo (Child Welfare). 

We continue this pioneering tradition today with outstanding research into the cures and treatments of tomorrow.

Trace the history of modern medicine >>  

Clinical excellence

Barts and The London’s long tradition of clinical excellence continues today, with some of the best clinical results in the UK and consistently high rankings against NHS and independent indicators.  By delivering excellence in everything we do, we hope to be the first choice for patients, whether they need routine treatments or more specialist care. 

Education and research

We work collaboratively with our academic partners, especially those at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and at St Bartholomew School of Nursing and Midwifery, to support the effective planning and commissioning of education to meet the changing workforce needs of healthcare organisations across north-east London in the future.

Closer alignment of research, teaching and clinical services means that increasing numbers of patients at our hospitals will be some of the first to receive new treatments and cures. 

Bringing excellence to life

Our mission is to give patients the best possible care so that they can live better, fuller, longer lives. 

Our vision for the future

In the future, as a foundation trust and one of the UK’s first academic health sciences centres, our vision is to apply best practice to achieve personal world-class care for our patients. This will be achieved in state-of-the-art facilities where staff receive the highest standards of education and training, and where leading-edge clinical research supports the needs of the communities we serve.

We’ve been busy - vital statistics for 2007-08