Imperial Health Charity

Imperial Health Charity is an independent grantmaker dedicated to enhancing patient care, staff wellbeing, and health innovation within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust hospitals through collaborative partnerships that address NHS gaps. Rooted in values of compassion, equity, continuous improvement, and community empowerment, it drives funding decisions via needs-led evidence, prioritizing holistic patient-centred approaches, staff professional development, and innovative interventions to tackle health inequalities and foster resilience. Its theory of change emphasizes accelerating progress through staff-led creativity, arts integration, and community engagement for sustainable care enhancements.

It funds patient experience improvements including hospital redevelopments for clinical spaces like operating theatres and children’s intensive care units, pioneering medical equipment and technology for complex health needs and chronic conditions such as diabetes, ground-breaking clinical research fellowships advancing treatments for long-term illnesses, staff wellbeing initiatives addressing mental health, stress, resilience, and breakroom renovations to support NHS workers facing burnout, arts in health programmes promoting therapeutic creative engagement and emotional wellbeing for patients and families, volunteering infrastructure enabling community peer support and befriending, and emergency hardship grants alleviating financial crisis for patients with complex needs. Beneficiaries encompass patients of all ages including children, adults with chronic illnesses, NHS frontline staff experiencing mental health challenges, families navigating hospital care, and surrounding communities seeking preventative health outreach, person-centred therapy, and inclusive activities to combat isolation and health disparities.

Exclusions encompass core NHS operating costs, statutory-funded activities, or projects replacing standard provision; it avoids non-collaborative or unproven interventions lacking evidence of enhanced care. Distinctive for its integrated model tying grantmaking to arts, volunteering, and Trust-led innovation like Innovate at Imperial, it prioritizes staff-proposed projects, community health organizations partnering directly with hospitals, and evidence-based approaches serving hospital-adjacent populations with urgent wellbeing, research, or hardship needs in underserved urban communities.