Annual General Meeting and Annual Members' Meetings

The GOSH Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Annual Members Meeting (AMM) is a chance for members, governors, staff, and the public to come together to review how we have performed in the last year. This will generally consist of highlights from the previous 12 months, a review of our quality, safety and financial performance, a report from our Lead Governor on Trust membership and a look forward to the future. Each meeting will have a dedicated theme and additional speeches and reports.

On Wednesday 20 September 2023. we celebrated our children and young people at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Annual General Meeting and Annual Members Meeting.

The meeting was held in person and online and was an opportunity to hear colleagues present on our performance in 2022/23 and featuring presentations from:

• Our Chair, Sir Michael Rake
• Chief Executive, Matthew Shaw
• Medical Director, Prof Sanjiv Sharma and Chief Nurse Tracy Luckett
• Chief Finance Officer, John Beswick
• Lead Governor, Beverly Bittner-Grassby

However, it was the Children and Young People who were the stars of the show!

We were especially pleased to have been joined by Rose, our Young People’s Forum Governor who shared her experiences as a patient, the opportunities GOSH has given her and the amazing things she has achieved.

Sameera, also from the Young People’s Forum (YPF) interviewed John Beswick Chief Finance Officer on GOSH Finances. We will share the questions and answers soon.

We received an inspirational video from some of our Young People’s Forum (YPF) members talking about their achievements in many areas from the British Transplant Games to photography and music.

Some of the Trust’s key achievements in 2022/23 included:

• Launched a new and improved Wi-Fi service that allowed staff, patients and guests to securely connect to fast and reliable Wi-Fi (April 2022)
• In May 2022, Alyssa, then 13, became the first patient in the world to receive base-edited T-cells to treat her T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia
• Our yearly Play Street programme resumed in June 2022, and we came together with patients and the local community to celebrate play and clean air on a glorious sunny day on Great Ormond Street.
• In July, 12 of our patients headed to Leeds to take part in the British Transplant Games
• The NIHR GOSH BRC awarded £35m funding to deliver translational research over the next 5 years.
• In November 2022 we celebrated three years of the Zayed Centre for Research. Since opening the Centre has welcomed almost 50,000 patients a year, seeing up to 200 patients daily.
• In February 2023, full planning permission for the Children’s Cancer Centre was granted in April 2023.

Also on the agenda was a discussion around our membership, how we communicate with them and a summary of our ambitious plans for the future as well as activities of the Council of Governors.

One question from the public was received, which Mat Shaw, Chief Executive answered:

Can Great Ormond Street be turned into a one way street?

The Trust is in communication with both local residents and the Council to pedestrianize parts of the road outside the hospital. Doing so would make a big difference to the wellbeing of our children and young people and the success of our Play Street events supports this. There is a long way to go, but we are making progress and getting support from many groups including the Mayor of London.