A new hospital trust that will serve more than 850,000 people in north west London was launched today.

The London North West Healthcare NHS Trust was created with the merger of The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust and Ealing Hospital NHS Trust.

The merger was officially signed off by the Department of Health last week and joins the hospital and community services across Harrow, Brent and Ealing.

The new trust now runs Northwick Park Hospital, as well as St Marks, Central Middlesex, Ealing hospitals, Clayponds Rehabilitation Hospital, Meadow House Hospice, Denham Unit and Willesden Centre.

The trust says patients will not necessarily notice changes from day one of the merger.

However as a result of having a larger pool of resources and experts available at the trust, health bosses say there will be an improvement in the quality of care of patients  over time.

Chief executive of the new trust David McVittie said: “This has been a long hard challenge for us to get here.

“The fact is we are now stronger together now and we can start looking forward.

“Today we have achieved our goal of becoming a single trust providing hospital and community services for our local communities.

“We have huge ambitions for the new trust and for the care it will provide to patients. Working with local GPs and council partners, we will focus on providing services that prevent ill-health and join up care across hospital, community and home.

“We will be able to create larger clinical teams, ensuring that patients receive the specialist care in the right place and at the right time.

“We will work to build on the leading-edge research and developments already established by the previous Trusts and aspire to excel in teaching and training.

“We are entering an exciting time for London North West Healthcare Trust as we work to shape our new organisation into one that meets the needs of patients in today’s NHS.”

In the months running up to the merger staff from the two trusts have met and worked at the different sites to familiarise themselves with the new working conditions.

The merger will also mean there will be investment in technology and buildings on the sites run by the new trust.