King's College Hospital Charity - Annual Report & Accounts 2020-21 - Flipbook - Page 6
King’s College Hospital Charity
come to life, and to reopening the Crown Fund for a
second year in 2020/21.
In September 2019 we were thrilled to welcome Iona
Joy to the team as our first Director of Grants and
Insight. Moving into our third year as an independent
charity, we’ve made great advancements in our
fundraising and philanthropic activities, and this is
a critical time to ensure the grants we’re awarding
are making a real and meaningful difference to our
patients, to our staff, and to our hospitals. With Iona’s
help, we will now be able to clearly measure, assess
and highlight the effectiveness of our work and its
positive impact on patients.
King’s volunteers continue to play a crucial role in the
delivery of exceptional patient care, and their services
are needed now more than ever. We are so proud to
fund King’s Volunteer Programme and to support the
King’s Social Action plan in partnership with the
Pears Foundation, to engage more young volunteers
in supporting their local hospitals.
It was a privilege to celebrate the work of our NHS
staff and volunteers at the second annual King’s Stars
Awards in November 2019. We fully fund this initiative,
but it is so much more than an awards evening; it is a
means to celebrate outstanding care – care that rises
to exceptional challenges daily. These morale-boosting
awards are also designed to encourage staff retention
which, in turn, ensures consistency of care.
As the year drew to a close and the unprecedented
effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic became more
pronounced, we launched our Hospital Heroes Appeal
in response to a huge outpouring of public concern
and generosity for NHS staff and COVID-19 patients. We
moved quickly, devising plans to generate and allocate
emergency funds whilst moving our entire Charity over
to remote working to protect our team.
Our community of supporters rose to the challenge and
together, we offered kindness, thanks and practical
support for King’s staff as they continued to work under
unbelievable pressure, caring for sick patients cut off
from their families. We also procured electronic tablets
to ensure families could see and speak to their loved
ones and receive constant medical updates. Our appeal
was a promise to King’s staff and patients – a promise
that we would not leave them to face COVID-19 alone.
We would like to thank everybody who has supported
us and worked with us over this extraordinary year. The
next 12 months will undoubtedly bring many challenges
as we adapt to new ways of living and altered ways of
working. But we will overcome these challenges and
forge ahead with our existing plans and extra priorities
because we remain dedicated to progressing lifechanging care for our patients.
Hilary and Gail
L: Gail Scott-Spicer, Chief Executive
R: Hilary Sears, Chair of the Board of Trustees
6
K I N G’ S CO L L E G E H O S P I TA L C H A R I T Y A N N UA L R E P O R T A N D A CCO U N T S 2 01 9/ 2 0