An eye for care

NHS Charities Together is the umbrella organisation for the country’s NHS charities and is the official national charity partner of the NHS with more than 230 NHS Charity members. NHS charities are the legal way the NHS receives, holds, and spends charitable funds and are dedicated to supporting the NHS. They exist for the benefit of current and future NHS patients. NHS Charities Together is the national membership organisation that individual charities belong to.

NHS Charities Together supports and champions its members and is the ‘trading name’ or ‘known as name’ of the Association of NHS Charities. Founded in 2000, the Association began as an informal group of the largest NHS Charities which came together to provide mutual support. In 2008 in the Association become a registered charity and invited all NHS Charities to share the benefits of membership. NHS Charities Together became an incorporated charity in 2019.

NHS Charities give over £1 million every day for the NHS so that people can stay well for longer and get better faster. Most of them focus on helping our health services to do more. From supporting research and development, to brightening up hospital environments, to donating state-of-the-art technologies and equipment, the charities raise funds and mobilise volunteers, touching lives and making a huge difference to millions of people when they are at their most vulnerable. Other NHS charities support mental health trusts, community health trusts, and ambulance trusts.

NHS Charities have a legal or formal agreement with their NHS Trust and therefore have a particular focus whereby they specifically fund activity that supports NHS patients directly. They might work with a particular hospital or NHS trust – either way, you know your donations are going to help the NHS patients.

N1 EssilorLuxottica will donate £10 each time a pair of sunglasses, glasses or a pair of frames are sold.

The charity donation will start the 15^th of June 2020 and end on the 31^st of July 2020

Donations are currently being used by NHS charities to support staff, volunteers, and patients as they combat the virus.

The initial wave of funding has been used to meet the immediate and urgent needs of staff, volunteers and patients – providing somewhere comfortable so they can take a break, nutritious food and drink, use of electronic-tablets so patients, staff and volunteers can stay in contact with loved ones, counseling support to protect mental health and help staff and volunteers process what they are dealing with.

The virus is having a profound impact on every aspect of our communities and NHS charities are widening the scope of the support they are providing, to help vital partnerships outside hospitals, such as hospices, community healthcare, and social care, making sure patients returning home have access to the care they need to recover.

The NHS are also working with their members to identify where additional support is most urgently needed by NHS staff, volunteers and patients in their area, with a particular focus on support for people who are disproportionately affected by the COVID crisis, such as patients and staff from the BAME communities and high-risk groups like those living with disabilities.

In the longer term, the money we have raised will also help fund programmes to help staff and families recover fully once the crisis has abated, reducing the long-term impact on them and the people they care about.