The benefactors, who wish to remain anonymous, have gifted the additional sum to the Fife Health Charity after being pleased with the creativity with which their initial contribution was used to provide support for patients and the healthcare staff working tirelessly to care for them.
The Fife Health Charity, which was previously known as the Fife Health Board Endowment Fund, supports a range of initiatives to benefit the patients, carers and staff of NHS Fife. The Charity is separate to the Fife Health Board and its monies cannot be used to provide core health services.
A Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance of the Charity and makes awards on all applications for funding over £10,000. Last year, the Charity awarded over £1 million to support local initiatives.
The donors’ previous donation of £500,000 has already been used to fund a range of initiatives, including the purchase of more than 100 tablet computers to enable patients to video call loved ones whilst visiting restrictions remain in place; the building of an outdoor gym for staff and patients at Lynebank Hospital in Dunfermline; toiletries, magazines, radios and TVs for ward areas, and portable translation devices for patients not fluent in English.
A further £100,000 from the original donation is also to be used to fund half of the £200,000 cost of establishing a permanent wellbeing hub for healthcare staff at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
In addition, £10,000 from the gifted £500,000 was allocated to Maggie’s Centre Kirkcaldy and £5,000 to Blood Bikes Scotland, to acknowledge their invaluable support to NHS Fife during the early stages of the pandemic.
Announcements will be made in the coming weeks once plans have been developed on specifically how the donation is to be used.
Rt Hon Tricia Marwick, who is the chair of the Fife Health Charity’s Board of Trustees in addition to her role as chair of Fife Health Board, said of the donation:
"This is a quite extraordinary act of kindness and we are genuinely blown away by the generosity shown yet again.
"The earlier donation of £500,000 has funded a wide range of initiatives and has been invaluable in helping us provide some of the home comforts that have made patients’ stay in hospital more bearable whilst visiting restrictions have been in place.
"On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I wanted to offer our most sincere thank you for the donation. We will ensure that the gift is used wisely to provide the maximum benefit for both patients and staff here in Fife."
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/.
