From the ground up

We opened our medical outpatient building on Portland Place in September 2021. Then, in April 2022, we opened the hospital on Grosvenor Place. It’s very exciting to be offering Cleveland Clinic care in the United Kingdom. Of course, there are meaningful interactions between us, Cleveland Clinic London is not simply a franchise of the North American organisation. With these facilities, we are building an international clinical network that opens patients up to that global expertise, rather than having it contained in London.

I’ve spent many years looking after international patients and I know what the issues are – they’re coming a long way, into a strange environment in which they may not completely understand the culture. We need to make that journey as comfortable as possible, which includes recognising the fact that people may only be in London for a short time. You need to coordinate opinion from multiple specialists as quickly as possible. Their treatment may involve dealing with health offices, embassies and sponsors, who often have different foibles to private medical insurance companies. The development of our global patient services team is very much built around easing a patient’s dealings with diverse teams and services.

This is one of the most digitally advanced hospitals in the UK. Our digital systems are underpinned by our electronic medical record, EPIC, which represents an enormous step forward in patient safety. This brings everything about patients together in one place that’s easily accessible by our caregivers, the patients themselves and the consultants who have referred their patients to us. All communications, radiology, laboratories and orders are in one place. This is particularly beneficial for those patients who have multi-disciplinary needs, because having a shared record speeds up the communication process and means we can share information seamlessly. We’ve also got an intensive care unit that is staffed by a consultant intensivist all day every day.

One of the major benefits of our model is that it’s a group practice. Often people work in silos but here we have real integration of teams, both within departments and across specialities. This means different departments are able to work together seamlessly. Most of us are employed by the organisation. I don’t see patients and charge them for my services, I get paid a salary This means that surgeons are free to take on complex cases where the patient may find it difficult to find insurance cover for.

There’s a research and education element to what we do, too – we’re the first private hospital to sign a systematic training contract with a London medical school. This shapes our environment and ethos. We run a lot of portfolio studies, which puts us at the cutting edge.

All of those things come together to provide a better environment for us to work in, and a better environment for patients. Patient care is about so much more than technical skill – it’s about the team surrounding them, the pre-operative assessment, the post-operative management, the ICU management, the rehabilitation. Patient care is tangibly embedded into our organisational structure.

One of the overarching things Cleveland Clinic wanted to do here in London was combine the best of US and UK medicine. I think doctors in the UK have a more clinical approach to patients than other countries, because there are relatively few doctors per capita compared with Europe. This means they have enormous and extremely broad clinical experience but haven’t

FROM THE GROUND UP

Dr Nick Losseff, consultant neurologist and head of global patient services at Cleveland Clinic London, on the privilege of building a hospital – and team – from scratch Interview: Ellie Costigan necessarily had access to the latest technology – certainly in the public sector. It’s been our mission to combine those things, and I hope we’ve achieved that.

It’s been a unique opportunity to build a hospital from scratch, which is no small undertaking. I’ve developed a lot of stroke services in the NHS, and it can take years to develop a unit to maturity within an established hospital or change an existing system. Building something from nothing has been huge fun – and seeing people coming in now and beginning to benefit from it is enormously stimulating, as has been the opportunity to get to know so many other physicians who want to work collaboratively. All the doctors I’ve met throughout the project are good, sensible people who I can work with harmoniously. That’s been consistent, which is just fantastic.

But the best part of my job is always seeing patients. Wherever I’ve worked, that hasn’t changed. It’s a great privilege.

Building something from nothing has been challenging but it has also been huge fun – and seeing people beginning to benefit from it is enormously stimulating, as has been the opportunity to get to know so many other physicians who want to work collaboratively.

Cleveland Clinic London 24 Portland Place London, W1B 1LU 020 3423 7500 clevelandcliniclondon.uk