CNWL is one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK, caring for people with a wide range of physical and mental health needs.
We have nearly 7000 staff across a wide range of disciplines (including doctors, nurses, social workers, hospitals and pharmacists) who provide healthcare to a third of London's population and across the South of England. We provide more than 300 different health services across 150 sites and in many more community settings.
We are recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing high quality, innovative healthcare. We aim to employ only the best people, and CNWL experts have been called upon to contribute to national and international health strategy and policy.
Whether the Trust is providing services to patients in the UK or to customers overseas, providing high quality services that meet the particular needs of those who use them is our number one priority. We engage with local people to really understand the local context and inolve them in ways that make a real difference to the services they receive.
- 361, 834 patients cared for in the community in 2018-2019
- 147,992 community physical health patients
- 93, 534 community mental health patients
- 3,504 mental health inpatients
- 1,025 physical health inpatients
- 7,000 staff across a range of disciplines
- £465 million annual turnover
- 100+ first languages spoken
- 93 per cent of patients told us they would be likely or extremely like to recommend CNWL to their friends and family.
Central to our international programme is a desire to find outstanding local partners, with whom we can co-produce solutions that embrace 70 years’ learning from the NHS, alongside the finest local provision. We offer you our comprehensive knowledge, expertise, and a deep understanding of healthcare, with the practical hands-on experience of successfully delivering services in a wide variety of markets. In return, you bring the very best in local care standards alongside an understanding of what is important to your patients and regulators. By working together we can capture the best of both to design and deliver world class services and solutions. We are actively seeking international clinical partners to work with and have a wealth of international experience and solutions to offer, including:
- Strategic and operational healthcare consultancy
- Clinical delivery in every country
- Clinical delivery in the UK
- Education and development opportunities
- Access to dedcates of clinical and operational expertise.
Case studies
Healthcare Trade Mission to Qatar: March 2018
In partnership with Healthcare UK, CNWL was one of a number of UK organisations to take part in the healthcare trade mission to Doha. This provided us with the opportunity to visit and meet with the key state run healthcare agencies as well as with notable private healthcare providers. This trip provided us with great insight into the excellent quality of existing facilities already present in the country but also showed us which gaps exist where we might be able to assist. We remain keen to further develop the network we commenced on this trip with a view to future partnerships.
Arab Health 2019: Dubai
Having been so impressed with what we experienced in Qatar, we are very interested in further understanding of healthcare systems across the Middle East. We visited Arab Health in Dubai in January 2019 with a view to ascertaining where our services might be required and to develop long standing and successful future partnerships across this region.
Arab Health 2020: Dubai
One of our key international goals is exploring partnership opportunities in the Middle East and surrounding countries. We understand that further development of mental health services is high on the agenda across the region and we are well placed to support this development. In recognition of our expertise in this area, CNWL was asked to deliver the first ever Mental Health and Wellbeing focused seminar at Arab Health, within their 2020 Primary Care conference. Lectures focused upon a broad range of increasingly prevalent specialities including depression, anxiety and innovations around mental wellbeing. Our seminar commenced with a ground breaking keynote speech on gaming and internet addiction which is one of the fastest growing clinical challenges within the region. Arab Health is the largest healthcare conference and exhibition in the Middle East and North Africa, attracting over 80,000 delegates. We are very proud that Arab Health has chosen CNWL as its Mental Health partner and look forward to a long and successful relationship with this industry leading event.
CNWL’s collaboration with healthcare professionals from China has been established since 2013. The Trust has provided observership programmes of up to eight weeks and bespoke shorter duration training events. These have focused upon integrated care, community care, mental health, specialist subjects and practical training. We have regularly hosted visitors from different parts of China where doctors and nurses had the opportunity to learn about and understand the UK National Health Service and and how care is delivered across the country. Visitors also met with our top clinicians where they benefited from exchanging ideas and professional interaction. Participants were able to learn about the benefits of care systems that are person- centred, and co-ordinated across social care, mental health and physical healthcare settings. Our work with China included a consultancy piece focused upon providing technical assistance to Shanghai Health Bureau’s ‘Shanghai Elderly Care’ Project and Data Systems and Analysis for Advanced Hospital Quality Management. This project included a visit to CNWL and our technology partners by a Chinese delegation
We are engaged in scoping work as part of the wider Indo-UK Medi-City collaboration to set up 11 healthcare and education sites across India, and have specifically advised on addictions services in Punjab as part of the project
Our Learning Disability Service has worked with mental health services in Sri Lanka to develop a training programme for doctors
Since 2010, CNWL has maintained a healthcare partnership with Mirembe Hospital to help them improve and expand their mental health and substance use services. In that time:
- 170 staff were trained in Therapeutic Management of Violence and Aggression techniques
- 44 staff were extensively trained in the assessment and treatment of substance use
- A further 66 staff and 34 peer support workers (who hadn’t previously received any training) were trained in the basics of mental health and substance use care.
The partnership has established several initiatives designed to help patients develop skills and manage their income in preparation for discharge from hospital. There is:
- An active peer support programme whereby current inpatients provide extra support for new or particularly vulnerable patients, with at least two peer support workers per ward
- A public education programme to battle stigma and promote positive messages about mental health and substance use.
- Locally, we have worked with traditional healers and elders to support people experiencing mental health and substance use problems.
More than 25 CNWL staff visited Tanzania to deliver training for various projects, and many of them remain in close contact with Tanzanian colleagues to provide ongoing support and mentorship.
Recently, we’ve been looking to develop new rehabilitation services with the aim of more domiciliary care.
In early 2023, Chris Bumstead, Coordinator for CNWL International Healthcare Partnerships, visited Tanzania in an effort to develop a community based mental health care service with Mirembe Hospital. Here, you can find a series of blogs from Chris recounting his progress so far:
CNWL has established new international healthcare partnerships in Zimbabwe, throughout 2020 and 2021, with the following organisations:
- Ngomahuru Hospital– a regional mental health hospital with around 100 beds, in partnership with the UK Charity Zimbabwe Healthcare Training Support (ZHTS)
- Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service, in partnership with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)
Also, in 2020, CNWL started working with Tanka Tanka Hospital – the national, and only, mental health hospital in Gambia. Tanka Tanka has approximately 100 beds but there are inadequate staffing levels and no community service.
By working closely with our partners in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Gambia, we have identified shared key objectives. One of which is to share learning through training and workshops so we have set up an online training programme. Our partners can also deliver cultural awareness sessions, discussions on innovative approaches to patient care and service delivery workshops which are of huge benefit to CNWL staff groups. In return, we can impart some of our skills and knowledge on topics like managing violence and aggression, substance use, community engagement and evidence-based treatment which helps patients on their recovery journeys. We also hope to establish individual relationships across our partnerships through mentoring and “buddying”.
Tariro Gumbo, Community Partnerships and Engagement Lead, said: “We are grateful for colleagues that have volunteered to contribute to the online training programme we are developing for our partners.” If you or your teams would like to know more or contribute, please contact Tariro at Tariro.gumbo@nhs.net or Chris Bumstead, CNWL International Healthcare Partnerships Coordinator, at c.bumstead@nhs.net.
Art, music, drama and dance are not peripheral effects that illustrate our experience of the world, but are core to how we comprehend, participate in and challenge what is happening. This is evidenced by therapists using arts to facilitate physical and mental wellbeing.
CNWL’s International Centre for Arts and Psychotherapies Training (ICAPT) is a leader in organising and supporting international conferences and training events for Art Therapies around the world.
Our international reputation in this field culminated in our cohosting two “International Arts in Healthcare” conferences in 2016 and 2019, in partnership with the Pratt Institute in New York, Brunel University London and the New York University.
The conferences aimed to address and respond to some of the major challenges of our time, where we are faced with cultural, political and social divides and detachment from environmental catastrophe. Delegates were invited to address the question of how one can reimagine identity, “otherness” and the possible in today’s changing world; where the arts are not the outcome of endeavours to change the health of the world, but are intrinsic to the process.
These highly regarded conferences evidenced our ability to work with multiple international partners to prepare, market and co-host complicated events. If you are planning to host a care related conference in your country then we would welcome the opportunity to help you achieve a successful event!
A number of staff from CNWL have worked with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Projects include:
- Relapse prevention training both on the methadone treatment programmes and prison services in Mauritius
- Psychological intervention training and the setting up of a methadone maintenance programme (MMP)
- A two-year masters training programme with over 10 African countries and South East Asian countries such as Vietnam
- Capacity building development programmes for countries such as Seychelles, Ethiopia, Cape Verde and Madagascar, and assistance in writing bids for Global Aids Funds
- Masters training sessions in Serbia for South Eastern European countries including Bosnia, Albania, Montenegro and Serbia.
The International Centre for Arts Psychotherapies Training in Mental Health (ICAPT) was established in 2011 to build upon the excellence of arts psychotherapies clinical expertise and to offer training for evidence-based models more widely. The aim of the centre is to provide a better experience for patients where interventions are guided but not prescriptive and are informed by the latest research without losing the intuition and innovation of which arts psychotherapists are known for.
The priorities of the centre are to:
- Offer training in mentalisation-based arts psychotherapies, interpersonal arts psychotherapies and interventions for psychosis
- Develop clinical research and quality improvement projects for arts psychotherapies within mental health services
- Develop dialogues with service users about what works for whom
- Build an international community.
For further information about how CNWL can help your organisation on an international basis and build in-country capacity and expertise, please contact our International Commercial Lead, James Pool
Tel: +44 (0) 203 214 5392
Mobile: +44 (0) 7753 308865
Email: jamespool@nhs.net