Our history

Founded in 1994 as Bexley Community Trust, we have grown to become more specialised and widespread.

We became Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust in May 2006, following several years as a high-performing NHS trust. We were one of the first trusts providing mental health services in the country to benefit from the greater local accountability and financial freedom offered by foundation trust status.

We offer a wide range of health and social care services to people living in south London and parts of Kent. This includes community health care such as district nursing and physiotherapy care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies.

Our offender healthcare services within secure environments and prisons continues to grow. In addition to our work within six prisons in Kent, three in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and at HMP Wandsworth in South West London, this year we were awarded a contract to provide integrated offender healthcare services within 10 prisons in the South West. This makes us the largest NHS provider of healthcare within secure environments in the country.

With a wide range of professionals working for Oxleas delivering a broad portfolio of services, we are united by a common purpose to improve lives by providing the best possible healthcare. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector. Most recently, in the summer of 2022, we became part of the South East London Integrated Care System which brings together trusts, commissioners, local authorities and community organisations.

We employ over 4,000 members of staff working in many different settings such as hospitals, clinics, prisons, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital in Woolwich as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs.