A Fife charity which last year alone was awarded over £1m to support patients and healthcare staff in the region, has been relaunched under a brand new name.
The Fife Health Charity, previously known at the Fife Health Board Endowment Fund, has supported countless initiatives for the benefit of patients and healthcare workers in the Kingdom over the last 70 years.
All donations made to hospitals in Fife are held by the Fife Health Charity, comprising of more than 350 different funds for the various wards and departments across the Kingdom finding additional items which would not ordinarily be purchased using core NHS budgets
The charity awarded over £1 million in 2020 to support local initiatives and gained particular prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the sharp rise in donations to the charity, including a single donation of £500,000 from an anonymous donor.
With visiting suspended across Scotland’s hospitals for much of last year, the charity was also able to supply wards in Fife’s hospitals with more than 100 tablet computers to enable patients to video call friends and loved ones, whilst also supplying toiletries, magazines and other items to make their hospital stay more bearable.
In addition, the charity also made four-figure donations to both Blood Bikes Scotland and Maggie’s Fife in recognition of the support they had provided during the first phase of the pandemic.
It has also pledged £200,000 to create a permanent staff wellbeing hub at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy and has agreed in principle to fund hubs in other healthcare sites in Fife.
In 2020 the charity also became a member of NHS Charities Together , which was made famous by fundraising efforts of ‘Captain Tom’ Moore and through this relationship has already received around £150,000.
Commenting on the changes, Tricia Marwick, NHS Fife and Fife Health Charity’s board of trustees chairperson said: “Perhaps now more than at any point in its long history, the charity has been able to provide invaluable support to local patients and NHS staff during the most challenging health emergency in generations.
“Prior to the start of the pandemic we began consulting with healthcare staff about how we could look to modernise the appearance of the charity to better reflect the work that it does.
“By rebranding ourselves as the Fife Health Charity, we have done exactly that and the new ‘wrapped arms’ emblem really captures the support we hope to offer patients and staff alike.”
Find out more about some of the other projects funded by the Fife Health Charity at:
https://www.nhsfife.org/get-involved/fife-health-charity/
