HSJ Value Pilot Project of the Year

A Picture of Health: determining a hospital’s population health needs : Chelsea and Westminster FT, Imperial College, London

• Hospitals don’t usually have defined geographic populations to whom they provide services: patients may attend from anywhere, without being geographically constrained.
• Identifying their core catchment population enables hospitals to proactively engage with health improvement by identifying and addressing community health needs, rather than just treating presenting patients.
• This pilot sought to:
  1. identify an appropriate method to define a catchment population using Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (CWFT) as an example;
  2. apply publically-available datasets to the resulting catchment to identify key health needs;
  3. explore the value and usability of the method, including possible areas for implementation.