Joint update on Royal Berkshire medical partnership

Joint statement from the Vice-Chancellor and Acting Chief Executive of the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

Some of you may know that the University has been in discussion with the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust about the establishment of a medical school for some years, and we wanted to update you on the situation.

Given the need for substantial investment and the University’s current financial position, the Strategic Partnership Board for the Trust and the University recently accepted that it would unfortunately not be possible to progress this proposal any further. This takes account of the fact that there are already several new medical schools in this region and a number of their students already do elements of their training at the Trust. However, the University remains committed to its health-related teaching and research in collaboration with the Hospital. Both partners believe the future NHS workforce will need innovative and transformative healthcare training across a wide range of roles, rather than just simply training doctors. Joint work in this area is progressing well.

Despite having to make this difficult decision, we still have a strong and positive partnership. We are fully committed to build this further so that the many joint projects already underway can continue, and more can be developed, to promote health excellence in research, education and advanced analytics. Our Clinical Simulation Training Suite on the University campus will open soon and we are making good progress on data science initiatives and on biomedical work on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The vital work being carried out by the Health Innovation Partnership (HIP) is showing real results in terms of successful bids for collaborative funding and with the establishment of University Departments of Excellence within the Trust. Our Physician Associates programme is also very well established and proving to be extremely successful.

We’d like to thank everyone who plays a part in this partnership and the valuable work they are doing to make it strong, sound and successful. It’s been key to ensuring excellence in joint training, research and development and recruitment, and this will inevitably be further enriched as our partnership grows and matures.  

Professor Robert Van de Noort, Vice-Chancellor, University of Reading
Dr Janet Lippett, Acting Chief Executive, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust