About our charity
Berkshire Health Charity is our donations and collections fund.
Our charity helps us support our patients and their families during difficult times, and boost morale for our hard-working teams.
It also helps us improve our services in ways that aren’t normally covered by NHS funding. For example:
- Enhancing the comfort of patients when they are receiving our services, for example in our hospitals and clinics
- Improving patient experience and care
- Improving staff morale and providing education not covered by NHS budgets
Anyone can make a donation to our charity. It may be that you’re thinking of doing a collection, taking part in a sponsored event, or have some spare items that you’d like to gift to us.
Read our charity policy (pdf)
Berkshire Health Charity provides additional support for families and carers and helps our teams to continue improving patients’ time and experiences at our hospitals, wards and clinics.
Some of the things the charity has funded include:
- West Berkshire locality and Community Hospital
- St Mark's Hospital in Maidenhead
- Some specific postgraduate education
- Services for people with a learning disability
- The Garden Clinic (your Sexual Health Clinic in Slough)
- Ward improvements to Henry Tudor Ward at St Mark's Hospital
- Carers of younger people with dementia
- Macmillan House Fund
- Duchess of Kent House Research
- Prospect Park Hospital (your mental health inpatient services in Reading)
- East Berkshire Community Health Services
- East Berkshire Palliative Care Team
- Highclere ward, West Berkshire Community Hospital
Berkshire Health Charity was registered with the Charity Commission in 1996.
The charity’s board of directors, who act on behalf of our NHS Trust (the Corporate Trustee of the fund), is responsible for making sure that your donations are spent and invested responsibly. They receive no additional pay for this role, but they are hugely passionate about improving everything we do, and ensuring patients, service users and their families receive the best possible care and experience we can deliver.
The charity’s income is regularly reviewed by internal and external auditors to make sure that it is being spent and invested in a way that benefits patients, service users, their families and local NHS staff, in a timely manner.