Royal Free Charity

Royal Free Charity drives excellence in healthcare beyond NHS core funding for Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust hospitals, fostering world-leading medical research, patient care enhancements, and staff wellbeing through values of compassion, kindness, innovation, collaboration, and inclusivity. Their philosophy emphasizes bridging critical gaps in discovery, recovery, and resilience, believing transformative impact arises from evidence-driven investments in frontline innovations, staff empowerment, and patient-centered breakthroughs that amplify everyday acts of support for thriving hospital ecosystems.

They prioritize pioneering medical research advancing treatments for long COVID, kidney health, cancer diagnostics, and limb loss, alongside patient experience improvements via digital surgery pathways, complementary therapies, virtual reality distraction therapy for chemotherapy, hospital-based welfare rights advice preventing homelessness, and peer support groups for amputees and cancer patients across all ages, including young people with additional needs, learning disabilities, and autism. Staff wellbeing initiatives fund psychological support with qualified therapists, mental health first aid programmes, peer support networks, wellbeing spaces, diversity training, and LGBTQ+ awareness to build resilience, reduce anxiety, and enhance retention. Supported interventions include volunteering schemes lowering age barriers for young volunteers with disabilities, innovative equipment for accelerated diagnosis and recovery, and therapeutic activities promoting holistic, person-centred care for vulnerable patients facing complex health needs, physical disabilities, and health inequalities within hospital communities.

Exclusively funding projects tied to Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust sites serving North and Central London hospital communities, they reject initiatives outside this geography, remit, or trust R&D strategy, with no capital, core, or unrestricted support. Distinctive for unique in-house welfare advice, staff- and researcher-led grassroots efforts like amputee peer networks and young volunteer programmes, and integration of patient, staff, and volunteer voices in evidence-based, proactive responses prioritizing direct transformative impact on vulnerable patients, resilient NHS colleagues, and medical breakthroughs.