Careers

We fund research, equipment and projects that impact positively on staff wellbeing and patient outcomes. We support bench-to-bedside research activity that sees patients benefit from research findings quickly and safely.

We’re the only NHS charity in the UK providing a hospital-based welfare rights and benefits advice service for patients. We actively prevent homelessness, and we help patients to access the financial and community support they need as a result of their illness.

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.

Our 300 volunteers and 14 pet therapy dogs make a direct and meaningful contribution to organisational efficiency, innovation and patient outcomes. There are 20 distinct volunteer roles ranging from the practical to the pastoral, from the everyday to the innovative.

While much of the support we provide is traditionally associated with NHS volunteering - helping patients to get to their appointments in a timely manner, providing mealtime help to patients and running a daily trolley shop service – many roles have been designed to meet a specific need and are unique to the RFL community.

These include delivering virtual reality therapy to staff, soon to be rolled out to patients receiving chemotherapy, and our digital volunteer initiative which sees volunteers supporting patients who lack digital skills, making sure they can access virtual appointments.

We were the first NHS charity in the UK to lower the age for volunteers when we designed our young volunteering programme. This has traditionally been a springboard for young people in our local communities who want to pursue a career in healthcare. We are now developing that programme to support young people with additional needs. This includes young autistic people and those with learning disabilities.

Are you motivated by the opportunity to work in the very building where new treatments, and hopefully even the cures, for cancer and diabetes are developed and tested? We delivered a £60million project to provide a home for the most advanced research into the human immune system in the UK – the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation. Just two floors above our headquarters, scientists in the Pears Building are working on this lifechanging and lifesaving research,

We place huge value on having an office base at each of the three hospital sites we support: Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free hospitals. This helps us build relationships with our RFL and research partners and our local communities, better understand the healthcare environment, and remain sensitive to the service demands on our NHS colleagues.

• Partnership
• Respect
• Innovation
• Dedication
• Energy

Our values define the spirit in which we carry out our work and the culture we’ve fostered together. They reflect our ambition to be a proudly fundraising-focused organisation and our determination to make things better for the patients and staff of our NHS partner.

Support for your career

We’ll work with you to define your career goals and map out a development pathway for you that includes an annual bespoke training and skills development programme.

We’re committed to on-the-job learning, and you’ll have regular opportunities to take part in internally-delivered workshops and training sessions. And thanks to our hybrid working model, you’ll have the chance not just to work directly with immediate colleagues, but to catch up with our many beneficiaries, including researchers, our NHS colleagues, and our local supporters.

We’re a highly collaborative organisation so you’ll have opportunities to take part in cross-departmental initiatives where you’ll be sharing the benefit of your experience and expertise to guide and inform decision making.

We have an in-house mentoring programme that sees experienced colleagues support the development of new employees and those who are promoted internally into new roles.

We value continuous learning so we will pay for your membership of your professional accreditation organisation such as Chartered Institute of Fundraising or Chartered Institute of Marketing

You’ll also benefit from our organisational membership of CharityComms, a community of more than 11,000 professionals working in fundraising, comms, marketing, campaigns, and more. This means you’ll have unlimited free access to a host of learning opportunities including in-person events and webinars.

Core benefits

As part of our employee compensation package, we offer:

• 25 days of paid holiday, plus three-day office closure rest period between Christmas and New Year, and UK bank holidays. This increases to 30 days leave after five completed years of continuous employment (all leave is pro rata for part time employees).
• A contributory pension scheme, where we match your 4% contribution towards your pension. If you choose to increase your payments into your pension scheme, we’ll match your contribution up to 9%.
• A sick pay package that offers one month’s full pay and one month’s half pay in any 12-month period if you’ve been with us for less than two years. This rises to two months’ full pay and two months’ half pay in any 12-month period after two years of continuous employment.
• Occupational maternity pay and paternity pay packages that provide more generous support than statutory pay alone.
• A flexible working policy to support our employees’ work/life balance.
• A Dress for your Day dress code that gives you the freedom to wear the clothes you feel are most appropriate for your working day.

Support for your financial wellbeing

As a member of the Royal Free family, you’ll be entitled to benefit from:

• Expert financial advice from our financial partner, the London Credit Union, a financial co-operative that exist for the benefits of their members. The primary objective is to encourage people to save, but also provide low-cost loans when members need to borrow.
• Savings on purchases with the Blue Light Card. For a small joining fee, members of the Blue Light community can access more than 15,000 discounts from large national retailers to local businesses.
• Our Death in Service benefit – this means that your loved ones will be assisted financially in the event of your untimely death during your employment with the Royal Free Charity. It ensures a tax-free lump sum pay-out to your dependents, and you don’t need to pay a penny towards this valuable employee benefit – it’s all part of your benefits package from us.

Support for your health and wellbeing

• We run our own health centre, the Rec Club, a stone’s throw from our Hamstead office which means all our employees can access a swimming pool, gym and fitness classes at a heavily subsidised pricing structure.
• We have a secure bicycle park and shower facilities at our Hampstead site.
• We have a weekly running club led by one of our directors who’s a veteran of many marathons. We use the couch-to-5k structured programme so it’s suitable for runners of all abilities.
• If that all sounds too strenuous, you could sign up for our Premier League fantasy football league or join our book club which focuses on authors from under-represented communities.
• We deliver fortnightly guided meditation sessions - available online and free – and all our employees are entitled to free massage therapy sessions from our in-house complementary therapy team.
• We’ve just launched our staff-led Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Board to develop our first EDI strategy and to hold ourselves accountable for our performance.
• We have a menopause peer support group, open to anyone experiencing the perimenopause and menopause, and a menopause strategy to ensure managers can support employees who are going through these life stages.
• Our Employee Assistance Programme ensures every employee has 24-hour access to free confidential advice and support on work and personal issues. This ranges from free confidential counselling, bereavement support and access to welfare advice.