King's College Hospital NHS

📸 : at King's…

Last week, the Friends Stroke Unit (FSU) team marked their fifth consecutive year of hosting events for the annual May awareness campaign.

The team, alongside the Stroke Association and King's Health Partners (KHP), held a stroke study awayday an awareness walk, where stroke unit staff visited wards to spread stroke emergency awareness and, a stroke booth offering blood pressure checks.

The team also held the second edition of the Stroke Cafe, where stroke survivors, relatives and colleagues from the FSU gathered to share stories, answer questions, and discuss support.

Thank you to our dedicated FSU team for organising these events, and to everyone who joined us.

🗨️ "Edesiri performed exceptionally well at interview, and we were in no doubt that he was full of potential. Having a visual impairment shouldn't hold anyone back from volunteering, and we were keen to see how we could help.”

🧡This , we are celebrating inclusivity at King’s.

Meet 24-year-old Edesiri from Streatham. He is our first-ever volunteer with a visual impairment. Edesiri applied for a volunteer role at King’s as a way of building experience and improving his employment prospects when leaving college this year.

Currently, he is working in an admin role at the Princess Royal University Hospital. "The team here are really helpful." says Edesiri, who has now doubled his hours.

To support his role, a screen reader software called NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) was installed on his computer, so that Edesiri can access emails and he uses his own braille keyboard to respond and input data into documents.

Amber Peters, Volunteer Service Manager at King’s, said: “It’s a pleasure to have Edesiri working at the hospital, he is an inspiration to us all.”

👉 Read Edesiri's inspiring journey for here: https://tinyurl.com/2c3tbnde

A huge thank you to Edesiri and all of our brilliant volunteers for keeping our hospitals running smoothly.

🌟 Want to share your thanks? If you'd like to share a thank you to one of our volunteers, who's helped you or made a special impact during your visit at our hospitals, comment below and we will forward it.

💙Each month, a different member of staff will be our on social media.

This month’s new profile picture features Gian Carlo Alcantara, Practice Development Nurse at King’s College Hospital. Gian has worked at King’s for nine years, supporting and training nurses who care for patients with blood cancers and complex blood conditions.

Gian said: “I love being part of a diverse, supportive community that continuously encourages learning, innovation, teamwork, and opportunities to grow both personally and professionally.”

What does your role consist of?
I help staff build their confidence, skills, and knowledge so that our patients receive safe, high-quality, compassionate care throughout their treatment journey.

What makes your role special to you and the patients you care for?
Shaping the education and training of nurses who deliver highly specialised treatments such as stem cell transplants, clinical trials, chemotherapy, and new therapies is truly special. It is a privilege to know I am helping patients receive safe, expert, and compassionate care throughout their cancer journey.

A special moment that you've experienced at work?
Seeing patients return to clinic in remission and recognising the nurses who cared for them during treatment remind me how meaningful compassionate care and support can be during difficult times.

Can you describe how you support families through some of the most challenging moments of their lives?
I support families of cancer patients by providing honest reassurance, helping them understand complex treatments and changes in condition, and creating a supportive environment where they feel informed, included, and cared for throughout their loved one’s journey.

June is Pride Month. Why is this important to mark, and what does this mean to you and the patients you care for?
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Pride Month is important to me because it celebrates authenticity, visibility, and inclusion, while reminding patients, families, and staff that everyone deserves to feel safe, respected, represented, and valued in healthcare.

King’s Critical Care Roof Garden is now open.

Allowing patients to receive full life support, whilst feeling the therapeutic benefits of nature.

Space for up to six beds, each patient will be close to a specially designed weatherproof medical cabinet which houses power, data, and medical gases.

The project was generously funded by King's College Hospital Charity

Read more: https://www.kch.nhs.uk/news/outdoor-critical-care-roof-garden-opens-at-kings-college-hospital/

If you’re having care at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, you can use the MyChart app.

You can check letters, test results and keep track of what’s coming up.

Young people aged 13 to 17 can also have an account.

Parents can stay involved, to support their child, by using their own login.

Watch this video, to learn more: https://youtu.be/Owiid29Ki3o?si=PJ2CewtZoz6Ky4b1

⚠️ AMBER HEAT HEALTH ALERT ⚠️

London and the South East are set to be very hot over the next coming days, with an amber heat-health alert in place from 22 – 27 May 2026.

With temperatures rising, make sure you are prepared:

💧 Stay hydrated
🧴Wear sunscreen
🌳Find shade
💊Carry your medication/inhaler
👵Check on elderly relatives/neighbours

More advice on how to cope in hot weather ➡ https://www.nhs.uk/.../heatwave-how-to-cope-in-hot-weather/

We’re raising awareness of a new campaign by the Higgins Trust to remind anyone living with HIV, that support is available to them. is a reminder that support is there at any stage of your journey.

THT Direct offers free and confidential support to help people access an HIV clinic.

The Caldecot Centre at King’s provides specialist care for people living with HIV. That includes initial diagnosis, long-term care and treatment with antiretroviral medication through our on-site specialist pharmacy. We offer specialist care for people living with HIV including antenatal, tuberculosis (TB), liver (hepatitis), neurological, antenatal clinics for pregnant women with HIV, specialized paediatric clinics, and dedicated young persons' clinics.



Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzlLhDF1Lfo

Today is - the anniversary of James Lind's 1747 scurvy study, widely recognised as the world's first controlled clinical trial. We are taking a moment to thank the patients who take part in research and clinical trials, as well as the many teams of staff who make this work possible.

Over the past year at King’s, 245 research studies began, and over 33,000 patients gave up their time to take part in a research study, to help find better ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease.

One research trial currently underway is the BOPPP trial, one of the biggest liver trials in the UK, aiming to improve treatment for people with cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver caused by long-term liver damage. The scar tissue prevents the liver from working properly and causes pressure changes inside the abdomen.

60,000 patients are living with this disease and about 11,000 people every year will die because of it.

The BOPPP trial, sponsored by King’s, is currently investigating whether blood pressure medication could prevent complications of liver cirrhosis. Funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), the trial has completed recruitment of over 760 patients from over 55 hospitals around the UK, and is due to report its findings in 2027.

Find out more about patient involvement in the BOPPP trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l7esP7BuVk

Together, we saved a life. ❤️

Following an accident at home, specialist teams across London came together to save the life of a 4-year-old girl.

Teams at both King’s and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust worked side-by-side to deliver emergency surgery and critical care, after Paisley-Rose sustained an extremely serious injury to her inferior vena cava (IVC), a large vein that drains blood from the body back to the heart.

From surgeons and intensivists to retrieval teams, nurses and anaesthetists, colleagues across both hospitals went above and beyond to give Paisley-Rose the best possible chance of survival.

Dr Marilyn McDougall, Clinical Director of Children’s Cardiac Respiratory and Intensive care at Evelina London Children's Hospital, said: “We’re very proud of the seamless collaboration between Evelina London, King’s College Hospital and the South Thames Retrieval Service, which ensured Paisley-Rose received the right care at the right time. It’s thanks to that teamwork, as well as the expertise of our surgical, critical care and anaesthetic colleagues, that she is now recovering well at home.”

Lauren Hall, Paisley-Rose’s mother, added: “We are so incredibly grateful to everyone who helped save out little girl. So many people have been involved in Paisley-Rose’s care, and to say they have been incredible is an understatement.”

Dr Trisha Radia, Clinical Director for Child Health at King’s, said: “Every day, we witness exceptional work to look after our patients, but this team effort across two different hospitals was truly extraordinary. Several colleagues gave up their own time, working hours after their shifts ended, to make sure Paisley-Rose had the treatment she urgently needed.

“The commitment from everyone involved in Paisley-Rose’s care was inspirational; this is a wonderful example of the difference we can make when we work together.”

Read about Paisley-Rose’s life-saving treatment here: https://tinyurl.com/49pt5cmh