Grants FAQs

A grant is a set amount of funding awarded to a grant holder to deliver a project to help improve patient care or staff welfare within the Trust. As long as the grant holder adheres to King's College Hospital Charity’s Terms & Conditions, grants do not need to be paid back.

You can apply for a grant here.

You can apply for funding from:

• Designated funds
• The Crown Fund
• Christmas funds (and other celebrations)

If you have an idea that you think would make a positive difference to patients, service users or their families, please fill in our Expression of Interest form. It’s the first step to help us find out more about your idea so that we can advise how best to proceed.

If you’re still not sure, please get in touch with us on [email protected].

For most of our grants, you must be a King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust staff member to apply. In most cases, we will ask staff to be substantively employed by the Trust, but we recognise that some staff may have roles at other institutions, especially our King’s Health Partners.

We know that working arrangements can be complicated and make efforts to assess eligibility on a case-by-case basis, particularly for our research grants. Please contact the grants team on [email protected] if you have any queries for guidance.

We do not take applications directly from patients. However, if you are a patient or family member who needs support for patient hardship, please speak to a member of Trust staff in the team looking after you who may signpost you to help or advise on whether this is available.

The grants team can offer support with your application. Please email [email protected], and we will find the best person within King's College Hospital Charity or within the Foundation Trust to help you.

After submission, all grant applications go to the relevant fund advisor and, if it is a large grant application, to a senior Trust approver for authorisation. Once this is complete, you’ll receive acknowledgement via our grants management system salesforce that the application has been submitted for approval by King's College Hospital Charity. Please ensure you email yourself a copy of the application before you submit.

This is sent from [email protected]. If you don’t receive this, check with your Trust approvers, or check your junk folder. If you still have concerns, please contact the grants team.

In exceptional circumstances we may be able to arrange a faster grant approval for patients or family members who need a grant more urgently.

For further advice, please contact [email protected]

In most instances, we request that you have received the relevant approval from the Trust or recipient organisation to undertake your project before submission.

The grant must not be used to bypass the recipient organisation’s expenditure governance processes and policies/procedures. As such, all expenditure on goods and services must be properly procured through King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s systems to obtain value for money, and steps must be taken to avoid the potential of undue influence that would come from gifts and hospitality.

All staff should be employed by, or have an honorary contract with, the organisation to which the grant is given i.e., usually King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, complying with all of their employment processes. All equipment (including medical/IT equipment and software) must be purchased/leased in accordance with the Foundation Trust’s policies and procedures and remain wholly in use for the benefit of the Foundation Trust throughout the asset’s economic life.  

If you cannot get approval before submitting your application to King's College Hospital Charity, please speak to us at [email protected].

All grants using King's College Hospital Charity funds should ultimately benefit patients, but we understand the connection between staff wellbeing and staff ability to offer the best possible care for patients. Therefore, we accept expenditure that benefits staff where it clearly demonstrates that it will be an effective way of achieving a benefit for patients, such as funding additional training or purchasing furniture for staff to rest.  

These criteria also apply:

• Expenditure that solely benefits staff is not covered by designated funds which purpose is explicitly for patients' direct benefit or welfare.
• Staff celebrations or gifts should not exceed £20 per person per year for each ward or area, including Christmas:
  • Staff celebrations and gifts must come out of designated funds.
  • The celebration or gift should be made available to all staff in the ward or area.
  • The benefit should not be focused on an individual or sub-group of staff.
  • The cost of alcohol will not be reimbursed.
  • Leaving or retirement gifts or celebrations are not eligible for funding.
• King's College Hospital Charity will not pay for professional memberships or subscriptions to UK bodies, regarding these as the professional obligation of the individual.
• Training and courses must be approved by the Trust, such as the nurses’ education team, before submission. We also ask that an education agreement be put in place. Please contact us for more information.

Please read page 13 of our designated fund operating instructions for further guidance.

King's College Hospital Charity reserves the right to veto expenditures that it deems not to meet these criteria. If requiring clarification, fund advisors are encouraged to contact us in advance of incurring the expenditure on [email protected]

We receive a number of different grant applications and depending on how large the grant is it may take longer for us to review and respond.

• If you have applied for a small grant, we aim to respond within 5-7 working days
• If you have applied for a large grant, it needs to go through our approval process:
• Large grants over £5k and under £20k will be reviewed by the King's College Hospital Charity grants team and approved by our Director of Grants & Insight.
• Large grants over £20k and under £50k will be reviewed by the King's College Hospital Charity grants team and approved by the Director of Grants & Insight and the Charity CEO.
• Large grants over £50k will need to be reviewed and then taken to the Board of Trustees for final approval. The Board sits quarterly, but we will need plenty of time to prepare Board papers and submission. Please talk to us about this process.

We’ll keep you informed of when you can expect a decision and update you on any changes.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will provide feedback to help you understand the decision.

If you decide to reapply, we strongly advise you to address the issues raised in the feedback. For further guidance, please contact the grants team on [email protected]

You will be asked to accept your grant within two weeks of your Grant Letter being sent.

To accept, please sign a copy of the Grant Letter indicating that you will comply with all the conditions set out in these guidelines and any additional conditions contained within the award document and return this to King's College Hospital Charity.

We like to see grants implemented as rapidly as possible, so a smooth drawdown of funds matters to us. The process for claiming disbursements against an awarded Grant includes several options.

To access the form to drawdown funds from an approved grant, click here.

The Grant Letter details how long the grant is valid from the date of the Grant Letter. If you haven’t requested all the payments within the timeframe set out in the agreement, we may close down the grant and make the money available again.

If the project has not started within 12 months, King's College Hospital Charity reserves the right to withdraw the offer unless an extension is agreed in advance.

If you experience unforeseen delays to your project, please apply for a no-cost extension using the change request form.

Throughout your grant, we will ask you to submit reports. Your report tells us the activities that have taken place, the impact that they have had and how you’ve spent your grant. You can also share lessons, tell us what’s next and give us feedback. We will ask you to complete a final report within six months of your grant end date.

The reports are on our online grants management system Salesforce. We will send you a reminder when it’s due and a link to access the form.

If you’re leaving King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust or unable to lead the project, you can request the Grant to be transferred to a different Trust staff member.

Please make the request using our change request form.

The Grant Letter details the approved costs. These are taken from the application you submit to the Charity and broken down to different budget headings which are individually approved. We allow you to move money between cost types and/or request small increases to the grant budget with prior approval from the Charity, which can be requested via the change request form.

Please contact us for further guidance if you need to change your grant budget substantially. Your grant has been awarded so you can carry out the project as described in your application. We understand that sometimes small things need to change, and we can be flexible so you can improve your project’s delivery based on new learning or information. However, we’re unlikely to approve requests that are significantly different from the original application and change the grant's objectives.

If you’ve experienced unforeseen issues or are concerned about your project’s costs, please contact us as soon as possible. We may need to take your request to the approvers, which can take a number of weeks.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to discuss changing your application substantially.

We’re aware that sometimes the Trust cannot complete the purchase, or there is better value for money if you purchase an item such as personal computers, travel, and small pieces of furniture/equipment first.

We can reimburse personal accounts up to £1,000. For purchases above £1,000, please request approval from the Charity via the reimbursement pre-approval form.

We can use our charitable status to VAT exempt certain purchases. This means that you won’t be charged VAT for the items as you’re purchasing with charitable funds.

The list of items that qualify in a hospital setting can be found on our VAT Exemption List here.

If you’re purchasing something from the list, please ensure that the supplier will accept a VAT exemption certificate.

Please provide the following information during the grant application process to ensure the purchase will receive VAT relief.

• A quote for the item from the supplier (valid for at least one month).
• The supplier’s name and address.
• A description of the item being purchased.

Our Finance team will include a VAT exemption certificate with the procurement request, and your purchase will receive VAT relief.

We understand there are unforeseen circumstances that may cause you to pause your Grant and restart at a later date. Please submit a change request via the change request form.

We may ask you to complete a report to tell us how you have progressed and what activities you have undertaken so far. We can then pause your project and ask you to keep in touch with us to reactivate it when you’re ready.

A designated fund contains money from charitable donations held by King’s College Hospital Charity is spent on a specific ward, area, or speciality. Designated funds can be used to fund grants that are ‘over and above the usual NHS provision’.

There are two types of designated funds:

• Trustee managed – administered by our Trustees.
• Fund Advisor managed – overseen by two senior Trust staff (known as Fund Advisors).

Designated funds are restricted to supporting a particular purpose. We work closely with the fund advisors and our Trustees to ensure that they are used to provide the maximum possible benefit for patients and staff. You can read more about designated funds here.

King's College Hospital Charity looks after over two hundred designated funds, each set up to support a specific purpose within our hospitals. Find out how you can access funding through a designated fund to support your team or service here.

There are two types of designated funds:

• Trustee managed – administered by our Trustees
• Fund advisor managed – overseen by two senior Trust staff (known as fund advisors)

Fund advisors help to shape grant-making from designated funds on a day-to-day basis. However, our Trustees are ultimately responsible for the use of designated funds.

The Trustees’ strategic management of King’s College Hospital Charity is dictated by its charitable objects. These state that King's College Hospital Charity can apply the funds under its control for charitable purposes relating to health services at hospitals (including research), community health, or any other part of the health service (all the above within the UK only). King's College Hospital Charity can only use the funds for these objects.

The Trustees devolve the daily management of King's College Hospital Charity’s funds to the Charity’s staff, who reserves the right to:

• Prevent the withdrawal of funds that do not meet the conditions set out in our guidelines or the criteria set by our Trustees.
• Authorise expenditure from a fund if the Charity believes this to be an appropriate use of resources.
• Cease to delegate their authority to a fund advisor if they believe the regulations in this document are not being met. In this case, they may appoint an alternative fund advisor or take control of the funds directly themselves.
• Amend these guidelines as and when necessary.
• Decline expenditure from the fund if it is perceived to be for tax avoidance or embezzlement of funds or any other action that may be contrary to the Charity’s governance or national laws.

Once a donation has been made to King’s College Hospital Charity, it is subject to charity governance and must be used in a timely manner in accordance with the charitable purpose of the fund. It is also non-refundable.

If you would like to discuss Designated Funds or the process for accessing these funds, then please contact [email protected].

Any questions regarding financial items in the fund statements can be emailed directly to [email protected].

There are rules around what type of income can be paid into Designated Funds. Please refer to page 7 of our Designated Fund Operating Instructions for more details.

Designated funds are generally restricted to supporting a particular purpose. Therefore, you can spend the funds to benefit patients and/or staff in line with this purpose. We have set guidelines on what your fund can be spent on. 

Please refer to page 10 of our Designated Fund Operating Instructions.

Each fund requires two fund advisors. Please complete the change of Fund Advisor form to change the fund advisor details on the designated fund.

Fund statements provide an overview of income and expenditure for each designated fund as well as the overall balance of the fund. All fund advisors listed on a fund will receive fund statements every quarter.

Any questions regarding financial items in the fund statements can be emailed directly to [email protected]

Please email [email protected] to inform us of any email address updates.

Fund advisors are responsible for ensuring the funds are used in accordance with the donor’s wishes and our charitable objects. However, there is also a duty to show a degree of independence, so fund advisors cannot receive any significant personal benefit from the funds.

The Trustees reserve the right to:

• Prevent the withdrawal of funds that do not meet the purpose of the designated funds or objects of the Charity
• Authorise expenditure from a fund if King's College Hospital Charity believes this to be an appropriate use of resource
• Cease to delegate authority to a fund advisor if King's College Hospital Charity believes the regulations are not being met. In this case, King's College Hospital Charity may appoint an alternative fund advisor or take control of the funds.