The fundraising effort of Tom Moore, the 99-year-old who inspired many with his sponsored garden walk, drawing in £15m on behalf of the NHS, has focused attention on the health service charities that stand to benefit.
Captain Moore’s 100 laps of his garden began on 8 April with a target of £1,000, which snowballed rapidly as his efforts received national TV and social media exposure. The £15m he has raised dwarfs the £10m donated to the fund by the Duke of Westminster and the £5m given by the Rausing family, and puts the Covid-19 Appeal, launched Monday,well on the way to its target of £100m.
The appeal has been backed by Premiership footballers, celebrities, actors and musicians, and by tens of thousands of others who have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds through their own activities.
But less is known about how the money will be spent or how it will be shared out among the 150 beneficiary charities brought together under the NHS Charities Together umbrella, many of which have historical links to local hospitals.
Collectively, they amount to one of the biggest fundraising charities in the UK. The members altogether raised more than £470m in 2018, joining the so-called “super-major” charities, along with Save the Children, Oxfam, and Macmillan Cancer Research.
NHS Charities Together includes well-known members such as Great Ormond Street children’s charity (which had an income of £87.5m in 2019), and Guys and St Thomas’s charity (£24m), alongside less fashionable lights such as the Health Tree Foundation, which raised £780,000 last year for NHS hospitals in Scunthorpe.
The focus of the Covid-19 fund is on providing support for NHS staff. “Who cares for the NHS heroes?” asks the fund’s Just Giving page, calling on donors to “show our respect and gratitude [to staff] as they work tirelessly in the face of the virus – it’s our turn to make sure we look after them, to ensure they can keep doing their vital work”.
Little detail is available on how the Covid-19 money will be spent. NHS Charities Together members were told on 30 March that a small grants scheme was open to applications of up to £5,000 (although it notes that this upper grant limit is being reviewed in the light of the popularity of the appeal).
Each member charity is allowed to make any number of applications (though they are expected to limit them to one per week). Grants are intended for funding well-being packs and gifts for staff and volunteers on wards, including food deliveries, refreshments, wash kits, overnight stay kits, and the cost of staff travel and parking.
A second phase of post-pandemic grants is being ringfenced to support the mental health and recovery of NHS staff and volunteers. “This will be in the form of grants that provide respite, rehabilitation and mental health recovery of NHS staff and their families,” the charity said.
The rules are clear that money raised for NHS charities cannot be spent on “core” clinical services, such as paying nurses and doctors – which is funded through taxation – but must be used to provide extra services. In practice, this could buy toys or tables for children’s wards, or artworks to brighten up corridors.
One NHS hospital charity said: “These funds may be used to enhance and complement the work of the NHS trust by funding research, items of medical equipment, and amenities for patients and staff. However, they add to basic NHS provision and do not substitute for it.”
NHS Charities Together said members gave £1m a day to the NHS last year, although it is not clear how equitably the millions will be shared among the 140 members, or whether NHS charities that are not members of the group will be able to draw upon the funds.
