The UK's top healthcare charities, all in one place.

Our favourite four UK healthcare charities, each working on a different part of staying alive and well: research, paediatric care, first response, and heart health.

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  Cancer Research UK

  Registered Charity: 1089464

  What they do

  Funding scientists, doctors and nurses working to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.

  Where they focus

  Lab research, clinical trials, prevention campaigns, and translating discoveries into NHS treatments.

  Why it matters

  The largest independent funder of cancer research in the world, and a backer of breakthroughs behind half of today's standard treatments.

  Why we like them

  It's the long game done well. Cancer Research UK funds the slow basic science most donors never see, and then helps it land in the hospital ward years later. We like backing patient money.

  Visit Cancer Research UK →
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  Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity

  Registered Charity: 1160024

  What they do

  Funding the work of Great Ormond Street Hospital beyond what the NHS provides: research, equipment, family support and rebuilds.

  Where they focus

  Paediatric research, specialist equipment, family accommodation, and play and music therapy.

  Why it matters

  One of the world's leading children's hospitals, treating the rarest and most complex childhood illnesses.

  Why we like them

  The funded extras matter more than people realise: a parent's bed next to their child, a clown doctor on a Tuesday morning, a piece of equipment that didn't exist five years ago. Small details, life-changing.

  Visit Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity →
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  St John Ambulance

  Registered Charity: 1077265

  What they do

  Training volunteers to deliver first aid and frontline medical support at events and in communities across England.

  Where they focus

  First aid training, event medical cover, NHS support during peaks, and youth programmes for under-25s.

  Why it matters

  Volunteer-led healthcare that bridges the gap between a member of the public and a paramedic, on the streets and at the scene.

  Why we like them

  Anyone walking past a St John volunteer can stop for help, no questions, no waiting list. It's the kind of soft infrastructure that holds a community together, and almost nobody else does it.

  Visit St John Ambulance →
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  British Heart Foundation

  Registered Charity: 225971

  What they do

  Funding research into heart and circulatory diseases, the cause of one in four UK deaths.

  Where they focus

  Cardiovascular research, CPR and defibrillator training, public awareness, and frontline support for patients.

  Why it matters

  Heart disease still kills more people in the UK than cancer. BHF is the biggest independent funder pushing that number down.

  Why we like them

  Decades of investment that quietly rewrote what survivable heart disease looks like in this country. And the public defibrillator programme means a stranger somewhere is alive today because BHF was patient.

  Visit British Heart Foundation →