St Mark’s has always been an extraordinary hospital, with extraordinary people. From its inception, St Mark’s Hospital has been dedicated to researching and developing new and more effective ways of treating, managing and curing bowel disease.
Professor Omar Faiz, Consultant Surgeon, St Mark's Hospital
In 1835 St Mark’s Hospital opened in London as the world’s first specialist bowel disease hospital for the relief of poor people afflicted by bowel disease. Nothing like St Mark’s had existed before.
St Mark’s has always been an extraordinary hospital, with extraordinary people. One of its first governors was the famous author, Charles Dickens who, having been treated successfully at St Mark’s for a painful condition, donated ten guineas in gratitude.
From its inception, St Mark’s Hospital has been dedicated to researching and developing new and more effective ways of treating, managing and curing bowel disease.
For over 180 years, there has been an unbroken chain of world leading experts at St Mark’s building their knowledge and skills through research that translates into improved clinical practice and patient benefits. One generation of world leading experts has passed on their skills and expertise to a new generation of doctors. This makes St Mark’s unique in the world. It is what enables St Mark’s to be the national and international referral centre for people with the most complex and difficult to treat bowel diseases that others cannot treat: more than 60% of the patients treated at St Mark’s are referred by other hospitals.
St Mark’s has made monumental strides in the field of bowel disease. For example, the survival rate from bowel cancer has increased as a result of surgical and medical research from 2% in the 1950s without surgery to over 52% with surgery today.
The medical and surgical treatment of Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis, which are collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), has improved in leaps and bounds and IBD can now often be managed and controlled well for long periods. There are currently no cures for these conditions and how people can struggle for decades with the devastating effects of these illnesses. St Mark’s is constantly working in a wide array of research projects in order to redress this situation.
St Mark’s is highly committed to researching and developing new, improved treatments and to disseminating clinical best practice worldwide through St Mark’s Academic Institute, which educates and trains thousands of practitioners annually. You can help us by supporting St Mark’s Hospital and St Mark’s Hospital Foundation to continue to lead the world towards a healthier future for people with bowel disease.
At St Mark’s, there is one highly important impact measurement that we aim to achieve for each of our 50,000 patients and all those patients who, although not treated directly at St Mark’s, benefit from our sharing of best practice with their doctors. That measurement is the difference our research-driven services make to the quality of life of people with bowel disease.
To read more about our pioneering work, please read our booklet, How St Mark’s Hospital & St Mark’s Hospital Foundation are combatting bowel disease – Successes, contributions and impact of our research:
