NHS reliance on charities may create problems for patients

The NHS now depends increasingly on charitable organisations, with more than 220 hospital‑linked charities collectively raising about £620 million each year, according to the chief executive of NHS Charities Together.

Before the National Health Service was founded in 1948, health provision in Britain consisted of a patchwork of local charities, voluntary groups, municipal authorities and private arrangements, and many hospitals survived on donations, subscriptions and fundraising events.

The creation of the NHS brought most hospitals into public ownership and funded them through taxation; founder Aneurin Bevan argued that care should not rely on charity, leading to restrictions on hospital charities' active fundraising, though they were still allowed to receive gifts. The Health Services Act 1980 later encouraged a more vigorous fundraising culture, prompting NHS charities to grow, professionalise and, by the 1990s, raise substantial sums for equipment, buildings, research, play areas in children’s wards and well‑equipped staff rooms.

Today, distinct from disease‑specific charities, these organisations support the NHS by providing extra equipment, services and amenities such as public CPR training, defibrillators in community venues and green spaces in hospitals; Orton notes the £620 million represents roughly 0.3 % of the health budget. She adds that while some argue core services like scanners and emergency‑department coordinators should be funded by taxes, "It's just the way it is now. We shouldn't get too ideological about this.

It's not helpful to think the state can do everything. Yes we pay taxes but that has to cover lots – and it's finite. If our fund‑raising means a parent of an ill child can stay close to their child while they are in hospital in a room funded by a charity, why not?"