Skip to content
J Pouch support charity | Red Lion Group
  • Home
  • About
  • What’s New
  • Resources
  • FORUM
  • Events
  • Contact
  • FAQS
  • MEDIC
  • YouTube
  • Search
Events

St. Mark’s Hospital relocation to Central Middlesex is complete

St Mark’s completes a ‘remarkable journey’ marked by unveiling of plaque by Sir Tom Troubridge          

By Christopher Browne – Roar! Editor

It’s official! St Mark’s at London’s Central Middlesex Hospital is finally open for business.

Actually, it’s been open for business and operating as the new St Mark’s (sharing duties and departments with the ‘old’ St Mark’s at Northwick Park, Harrow) for almost three years.

However, last week all the key figures behind the move held a buoyant, good-humoured opening ceremony at this clean, clinical ultra-modern hospital site in central London’s Park Royal.

The new St Mark’s consultants, surgeons, research specialists, doctors, nurses, support staff, former patients and support groups mingled with distinguished St Mark’s consultants from the past and several guests headed by the local MP Dawn Butler, Labour MP for Brent East, and the Labour peer Baroness Pilkeithley.

In her introduction, Pippa Nightingale, CEO of the London North West University Healthcare Trust, praised the activities of the Red Lion Group, comments that were greeted with a flurry of applause from the audience. Then several speakers reviewed the hospital’s achievements of the past three years, which Sir Tom Troubridge, Chairman of the St Mark’s Hospital Foundation, referred to as a “remarkable journey”.
(See below for full details of Speakers)

Suddenly the mood changed when we were invited to lunch. Most of us have our own take on hospital food, but this time it was different – a lavish spread that would do credit to anything from M&S (perhaps some of it came from there!).

The good humour was spreading and the by-now cheerful throng was divided into groups for a series of guided tours of the hospital’s new departments, some of its streamlined, recently-installed equipment – and many admiring glances at the building’s radical design features.

Finally, we all assembled in the main atrium where a commemorative plaque was unveiled by Sir Tom Troubridge.

See Pictures from event below.

  • Plaque Group
  • Plaque Group
  • John Nichols & James Thomson
  • Plaque Group
  • Jason Bacon & Sir Tom Troubridge
  • Pippa Nightingale & Dawn Butler
  • James Thomson & John Nicholls
  • Simon Gabe, Dawn Butler – intestinal rehabilitation
  • Siwan Thomas Gibson
  • John Nicholls & Robin Kennedy
  • Sir Tom Troubridge
  • Gary Bronziet, Chris Browne & David Davies (Red Lion Group)
  • The St. Mark’s Plaque

Speakers in details :-

  • How and why St Mark’s Hospital Moved
    Professor Omar Faiz – Medical Co-Director St Mark’s Hospital
  • What has been Achieved in the last three years?
    Miss Carolynne Vaizey – Medical Co-Director St Mark’s Hospital
  • What does the future hold?
    Professor Siwan Thomas Gibson – Incoming Medical Director, St Mark’s Hospital & Mr Ian Jenkins – Incoming Deputy Medical Director, St Mark’s Hospital
  • A Remarkable journey
    Sir Tom Troubridge, Chairman of the St Mark’s Hospital Foundation.

Related posts

  • St. Mark’s hospital clinical services at Northwick Park, Central Middlesex and beyond
    Date
    June 29, 2021
  • RLG donates £5,000 towards pouch-related research
    Date
    November 16, 2021
  • A brief history of St. Mark’s hospital
    Date
    October 17, 2023
Events

St. Mark’s hospital clinical services at Northwick Park, Central…

St. Mark’s hospital clinical services at Northwick Park, Central Middlesex and beyond

The latest in the Red Lion Group Zoom into Summer webcasts continued last night (June 28th 2021) with an excellent presentation by Jason Bacon, CEO of the St Mark’s Foundation.  The St Mark’s Foundation is a non-NHS charity linked to St Mark’s Hospital and who raise money to support fundamental research and clinical work being conducted at this centre of excellence for bowel surgery.  The Foundation raises approximately £2m every year for this tremendous cause and Jason has regular meetings with the clinic staff to understand their needs and how the funding should best be directed.  The Foundation also delivers a huge amount of training resource to the St Mark’s Academy.  

Jason spoke about the disruptions caused by COVID, with surgery being stopped at St Mark’s as Northwick Park was transformed into a front-line covid hospital, including the St. Mark’s Frederick Salmon ward. The pouch nurses and other specialist staff were relocated to Central Middlesex Hospital and with the reality that only very urgent outpatient cases could be seen. 

The staff remain at Central Middlesex Hospital and this might be a permanent move but no one is sure about this at the moment.  The restrictions are more relaxed so the pouch nurses have been able to expand access to their levels of support for pouchees, and potential pouchees. 

Jason was full of praise for the multi-disciplinary specialist skills which are integrated and available to provide thorough care to pouchees before, during and after their surgical journey and this is recognised by the fact that 60% of St Mark’s patients are tertiary referrals (in other words they are patients who are referred from other hospitals).    

Central Middlesex Hospital is a modern facility with excellent parking for those travelling by car and an excellent local bus service with a sub-depot located right outside the hospital.  

Every cloud has a silver lining and Jason spoke warmly about the skills developed as a result of adapting to the new challenges of covid, in particular the conduct of outpatient consultations over the internet via zoom calls.  Zarah Perry-Woodford will be speaking on this topic in more detail during her RLG Zoom lecture in September (date to be announced). 

Jason was also able to offer informal comment and advice on the availability of medina catheters after the current supplier withdraws the product.  RLG will be following up on this on behalf of our members.  

The next in the series of Summer lectures takes place on 7 July with Ellie Bradshaw talking about the importance of full emptying on pouch health and function.  Until recently, Ellie was a specialist nurse in the Biofeedback Unit at St Mark’s, so she has a huge amount of knowledge and expertise and is an engaging and entertaining speaker. 

You can see a full recording of the Jason Bacon webcast and register for upcoming events at https://pouchsupport.org/events


David Davies
(RLG Chairman)

Search Resources

Filter Resources

Roar

All Videos

--Information Day 2015

--Information Day 2017

--Information Day 2018

--Information Day 2019

--Zoom 2020

--Zoom 2021

--Zoom 2022

--Zoom 2023

--Zoom 2024

--Zoom 2025

--Zoom 2026

RSS feed: News from St. Mark’s Foundation News from St. Mark’s Foundation

  • St Mark’s Clinicians at the European Society of Coloproctology 2026 Scientific Meeting
  • St Mark’s Nurses Share Their Expertise at the Colorectal Genomics Masterclass
  • St Mark’s Consultant Colorectal Surgeon Takes on a Visiting Professorship at the Cleveland Clinic
  • DJ by night, St Mark’s Ambassador by Day: Interview with Saj Shanthakumar
  • St Mark’s Hospital hosts major milestone for surgical innovation with new AI colour mapping tool
  • Donation from The Red Lion Group to Support Ulcerative Colitis Surgical Research
  • Spotlight on Pebs Edwards, ‘Boomers’ Project Research Fellow
  • Conversation with Dr Diya Kapila for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month
  • Interview with Gita Lingam, St Mark’s Research Fellow and Winner of the 2025 John Nicholls Prize for Research
  • The ‘St Mark’s Difference’ Raises £16,177!

Recent Posts

  • Kangaroo Club Information Day 2026
  • Inspirational stories of living with a J Pouch
  • Life time achievement award for Prof John Nicholls
  • Do the new GLP-1 “slimming” drugs deliver better pouch performance?
  • Pouch irrigation and catheterisation demystified
Privacy | Sitemap
The Red Lion Group is a UK registered charity number 1068124

© Copyright [wpsos_year] The Red Lion Group. All Rights Reserved.

Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress
  • Facebook
  • twitter
  • YouTube