Royal Free Charity | About us

About us

Supporting our hospitals, NHS colleagues, patients and researchers

We are the NHS charity partner of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust. We exist to support our hospitals to go further, faster and deliver more world firsts – for the patients they care for locally, and for the care they can impact globally. 

We focus support on four core areas

  • Patients and their families

    We enhance the experience of patients throughout their hospital journey, through the services we provide directly and the programmes and equipment we fund on the wards. From diagnosis to discharge, we’re making our patients’ experience the best it can be.

  • Staff

    We support the staff of the Royal Free London and North Mid to deliver the best possible healthcare. We recognise and celebrate the dedication of our incredible NHS staff and we’re always here for them. 

  • Research and innovation

    We support the research community in our hospitals and partner institutes to drive forward innovation and research. We lay the foundations for life-changing and life-saving research, improving care locally and science globally. 

  • Equipment and technology

    We propel our hospitals beyond what NHS funding can achieve by securing the best available technology and equipment for our clinicians. By investing in the latest equipment, we facilitate earlier diagnoses and enable life-saving treatment.

Services we provide

Complementary therapy

While many NHS hospitals provide massage therapy for patients with cancer, we’re the only one in the UK providing a hospital-wide clinical massage service for all patients. Our specialist complementary therapy team assists patient recovery and rehabilitation, as well as making a positive contribution to patients’ emotional wellbeing. 

  • Man lying in hospital bed receiving a massage from a complementary massage therapist.
    How we help

    Complementary therapy massage

    We offer complementary therapies to enhance the Royal Free London’s care for its patients and support for its staff.

Support hub

We’re the only NHS charity in the UK delivering a hospital-based welfare rights and benefits advice service for patients. We help patients and staff to access benefits and support they are entitled to and we actively prevent homelessness. 

We bring people together in peer support groups, most notably supporting amputees to adapt to life with limb loss. 

  • £800k
    won for our clients last year through advocacy and support
  • 1st
    service of its kind to be provided in-house in an NHS hosptial

We also bring people together in peer support groups, most notably supporting amputees to adapt to life with limb loss. 

Volunteering

Our 472 volunteers and 17 pet therapy dogs make a direct and meaningful contribution to patient outcomes. There are 20 distinct volunteer roles ranging from the everyday to the innovative.

  • 472
    volunteers across our sites
  • 20
    different volunteer roles

Volunteering roles include traditional services – helping patients to get to their appointments on time, providing mealtime help to patients and running a daily trolley shop service – and roles that have been designed to meet a specific need and are unique to the Royal Free London community.

These include delivering virtual reality therapy to staff and to patients receiving chemotherapy and supporting patients who lack digital skills, making sure they can access online appointments.

Young volunteers

We were the first NHS charity in the UK to lower the age for volunteers when we designed our young volunteering programme.

This helps young people in our local communities who want to pursue a career in healthcare. We are now developing that programme to support the children of Royal Free London employees and young people with additional needs. This includes young autistic people and those with learning disabilities.

  • Group photo of four young volunteers.
    Get involved

    Young volunteers programme

    Providing local 16- to 22-year-olds with the opportunity to volunteer in a hospital setting, develop new skills and to learn about the NHS.

What we fund

We go beyond the limitations of NHS funding to buy equipment and support projects that impact positively on staff wellbeing and patient outcomes. 

We support research activity that sees patients benefit from findings quickly and safely. Our support for early-stage research projects means researchers have a strong evidence base when applying to larger health research funders. And we support the research leaders of the future by investing in clinical research training programmes for postgraduates, including funding PhDs.

We work beyond the confines of our hospitals to reach more people across north London. This includes grant funding awarded for projects to improve outcomes for people with cancer. 

  • We awarded a £360,000 grant to a joint initiative by RFL and North Mid to target geographical hotspots for cancer and cardiovascular disease. The project will help prevent cancer and other long-term conditions by using every opportunity to help patients to adopt healthier habits.
  • We’ve awarded £350,000 to a project by the North London Mental Health Partnership, to make it easier for people with learning disabilities to access cancer screening.
  • We led the delivery of a £735k project, funded by NHS Charities Together, to tackle health inequalities linked to the pandemic in Haringey, Edmonton and Tottenham. We designed the initiative in response to the variations in health outcomes and life expectancy across north London which strongly correlate with deprivation and ethnicity.