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King's volunteers support the NHS

14 May 2020

Staff and students from King’s health faculties have been supporting the NHS clinical response to the pandemic at its most critical time.

King's students and graduates

Medical students from King’s have been graduated early, enabling many to volunteer to help their colleagues in the NHS. The King’s community celebrated their achievements during their studies, and as they begin their professional careers, in online ceremonies.

Professor Sir Robert Lechler, Senior Vice President/Provost (Health), recorded a speech for the ceremony.

Many King's nursing and midwifery students are also joining the response, working on the wards as students on extended placements as NHS employees.

Contributing to clinical care

King’s has released all clinical academics from their current responsibilities should they wish to contribute to frontline care.

Professor Ian Everall, Executive Dean Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) and Professor Richard Trembath, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine said: ‘As a medical community, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to bolster the NHS frontline response’. Both Professor Everall and Professor Trembath have volunteered themselves.

Staff from the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care have also volunteered with the NHS. Carolyne Stewart, a teaching fellow at King’s, has joined the intensive and high dependency care critical care training team, based at London’s Nightingale Hospital in the ExCel Centre.

The most inspiring thing about working at NHS Nightingale is the staff who come to work there.– Carolyne Stewart, Teaching Fellow and Critical Care Clinical Educator at NHS Nightingale, London

Professor Nicholas Hart is Professor of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at King's, and the Director of the Lane Fox Respiratory Service at the Guy's and St Thomas' Trust, and has been treating COVID patients in ICU, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

At this time we are all looking at ways to help NHS colleagues. As with so many of my clinical academic colleagues, I have expressed a desire to do whatever I can to support those delivering frontline services.– Professor Richard Trembath, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine

Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and other staff from IoPPN are providing support for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Dame Til Wykes and Dr Alison Beck are establishing a supportive advice line for NHS staff, based on their previous work supporting staff in Sierra Leon during the Ebola epidemic. Staff from the IoPPN’s Division of Neuroscience also volunteered for King’s College Hospital in both clinical and lab roles.