The Royal London Hospital
Trauma services were set up at the Royal London Hospital in the late 1980s. The trauma service at the RLH leads the UK field for developing effective, efficient, coordinated trauma systems and has also developed several disaster response systems.
Over the last few decades, the clinical teams across the trauma service have been involved in the management of various major incidents, including the London bombings which occurred in 1993, 1999 and 2005, and 1999, and the terrorist bombings in Bishopsgate in 1993. They have developed and put in place action plans for dealing with emergency situations and have close relationships and joint working with the military.
Professor Karim Brohi set up a dedicated trauma research unit in 2008 which has developed over time into C4TS. C4TS received infrastructure support from Barts Charity in 2012 and aims to become a self-sufficient research centre through its globally expanding research and educational activities.
C4TS’s partnership with the Royal London is particularly close and critical to advancing trauma research internationally. This is because the RLH is the busiest major trauma centre in Europe, and Blizard has ‘state of the art’ laboratory and other research infrastructure. The majority of C4TS research projects involve working with Barts NHS patients and clinicians. These factors put us in a unique and important global position to make advances in trauma treatments.
Some specific examples of how C4TS with Barts Health NHS Trust/ the RLH include:
- C4TS is led by Professor Karim Brohi who is a world renowned trauma expert. He is a trauma and vascular surgeon who is employed by Barts Health NHS Trust as well as Queen Mary University of London (QMUL)
- Dr. Ross Davenport led on the investigation with Prof Brohi on acute traumatic coagulopathy (ATC) to identify reasons why patients bleed to death. Their research (which included the RLH) has led to changes in how we manage patients pre-hospital and in ED thus saving more lives
- C4TS have secured a Wellcome Trust award to conduct a clinical trial for a potential therapeutic agent that reduces the incidence and severity of multiple organ failure in haemorrhaging trauma patients; the RLH is one of the trial sites
- The Outcomes Unit work closely with the RLH trauma nurse co-ordinator and the Barts TARN team.
C4TS joint research projects include working with:
- RLH orthopaedic surgeons to improve pelvic trauma management,
- RLH physiotherapy department evaluating the benefits of electrical stimulation in fracture healing
- NIHR HTA randomised control trial (RCT) with RLH, Preston and Leeds to improve return to work of trauma patients after head injury
- Several joint research projects with critical care clinicians and ED
C4TS runs the International Trauma Masters Programmes based at QMUL in which some Barts Health trauma clinicians teach and some RLH staff are enrolled. Barts Health NHS Trust is also the primary healthcare organisation providing clinical training to students enrolled at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD), of which C4TS is a part.
