Healthcare charity unveils five-year plan for £150m worth of grant giving

Barts Charity has revealed its plans for how it will spend its £30m a year programme of grants to improve the health of communities in East London over the next five years.

The East London based charity will work primarily with Barts Health NHS Trust as well as Queen Mary University of London to fund local medical research and healthcare projects.

It is looking to hand out more than £150m in grants between 2022 and 2027, which is £6m more than it gave to local research and healthcare initiatives over the last five years.

The aim is to “make life changing improvements for the people of East London, said the charity’s chief executive Fiona Miller Smith.

The charity also plans to diversify and grow its income to ensure it can maintain funding of local healthcare initiatives.

Its strategy includes “more tightly focused vision and mission” that will concentrate funding on research, healthcare, fundraising and communicating impact of grants.

The charity’s director of funding and impact Victoria King says that previously funded work includes ensuring all Barts hospital sites have a dedicated wellbeing space for NHS staff.

“Our strategic investment into cancer research has enabled significant advances in a number of areas including the understanding of drug-resistant cancer cells,” she added.

“The Women’s and Neonatal Unit at Whipps Cross Hospital has been rebuilt and modernised to improve the experience of women and their families in East London.”