King's College Hospital Charity - Annual Report & Accounts 2020-21 - Flipbook - Page 5
Welcome from our Chair of Trustees and Chief Executive
Welcome from our Chair of
Trustees and Chief Executive
As we look back over the past 12 months, we feel a great sense of pride
in the knowledge that King’s College Hospital Charity is a truly proactive
charity that can effectively rise to the challenge of changing need.
One of our great strengths is our ability to listen to
the experiences of patients, families and staff at the
hospitals that make up the King’s College Hospital
Foundation Trust (King’s) and respond to their needs.
Last year, through our fundraising and grant-making
activities, we helped to provide additional care and
support that went above and beyond what is possible
from government funding alone. And when all our lives
were suddenly impacted by COVID-19 we were able
to quickly refocus our efforts to provide emergency
support at a time when it was needed the most.
We will remember 2019/20 as a year of challenges
– some exhilarating, some inspirational, and some
unexpected and entirely unprecedented. But together,
we rose to them all.
We awarded more grants for a wide range of initiatives
that will all directly impact patients. These included the
purchase of state-of-the art scanning equipment, research
projects that offer hope for the future, a support service
for families coping with life after brain injury, a marvellous
paediatric outpatients refurbishment, and an appeal
that ensures every child spending Christmas in one of our
hospitals has a special gift to open on Christmas Day.
Spurred on by the desire to help us make a positive
difference to patients’ lives, our fundraisers took on a
variety of challenges including the London Marathon,
the London Landmarks Half Marathon and the Golden
Jubilee Abseil. Board trustee Elizabeth Robertson, Gail
Scott-Spicer, and several staff members also braved the
abseil in solidarity with our supporters.
We devised a new flagship charity event – the Great
Hospital Hike, and over 200 supporters accepted our
challenge to complete the 17-mile trail from King’s
College Hospital to the Princess Royal University
Hospital. Just two weeks before the event was set
to take place in March 2020, the national COVID-19
lockdown forced us to postpone. However, with over
£58,000 raised so far; we are confident our supporters
will walk with us in 2021.
Throughout the year, numerous donations, pledges and
special events helped to progress our Transforming Liver
Care (TLC) Appeal towards its £1.5 million target. Highlights
included a summer reception for 150 guests at the iconic
Highclere Castle, hosted by The Earl and Countess of
Carnarvon, and an exclusive dinner at the House of Lords
hosted by the Rt. Hon. Professor Lord Kakkar.
We continued to fund vital liver cancer research
with the support of Mark Thornberry, a determined
charity champion who defied his terminal liver cancer
prognosis to raise over £100,000 for King’s in just
three years. Mark sadly passed away in June 2020, but
his legacy will ensure that our researchers will gain a
greater understanding of liver cancer progression and
develop more targeted and effective treatments for
patients like Mark in the future.
Mark will also be remembered as one of the founding
members of the judging panel for the Crown Fund,
a new programme designed to attract small scale
projects with the potential to make a big difference
to patient outcomes and experience. Launched in
August 2019, the programme inspired a fresh wave
of innovative ideas and attracted 38 applications
for grants of up to £25,000 each. Ten of the most
impactful projects were chosen as winners, with grants
awarded to a range of departments and specialties
across all hospital sites. We look forward to seeing the
transformative impact of the winning projects as they
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