About The Health Foundation

Key facts

  • The Health Foundation is an independent, charitable foundation working to make the quality of healthcare in the UK the best it can be.
  • We were established in 1998 as the PPP Healthcare Medical Trust, when we were given an endowment of £566 million resulting from the sale of the PPP Healthcare Group to Guardian Royal Exchange.
  • Each year, we spend at least £20 million on individuals, organizations and institutions working to improve health and healthcare in all four countries of the UK. Since 1998, the Foundation has committed over £114 million in grants.
  • We also commission and conduct research and evaluation studies to test and measure new ways of improving health services for the future.
  • The individuals and organisations involved in our work are encouraged to share best practice and learning in order to improve the delivery and management of front-line services for patients.
  • We seek to influence healthcare decision-makers and national policy makers so that the results of our funded work help to bring about sustainable and widespread improvements in patient care across the UK.
  • We operate independently from government, political parties or other interest groups. The Health Foundation is, and has always been, independent from AXA PPP Healthcare, the private medical insurer.


Our work

The Health Foundation’s work is currently focused on five strategic aims. Within these aims, we run competitive award schemes and encourage talented individuals and organizations to apply in order to win grants.

In addition to the financial grant, many of our schemes offer extensive support from our expert partners such as leadership development consultants or the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the USA which specializes in teaching quality improvement tools and techniques.

Our five main areas of work are:

Developing leaders to improve health and healthcare services.

  • We believe effective leadership is critical to the performance of healthcare systems in the UK and that the leadership potential of individuals and teams should be nurtured.
  • We currently have six distinct leadership award schemes.
  • In 2005, we spent £8.6 million in this area.

Supporting organisational efforts to improve quality and performance in health and healthcare services

  • We believe every patient deserves the safest care possible
  • Through our Safer Patients Initiative, we are working with 24 hospitals across the UK on ways of making hospitals safer for patients
  • In 2005, we spent £3.3 million in this area.

Engaging clinicians in quality improvement.

  • We believe clinicians have a central role to play in achieving and promoting quality improvement
  •  We currently run two Engaging with Quality award schemes – one in acute care and mental health, the other in primary care
  • In 2005, we spent £1.5 million on this work.

Engaging patients for better health and healthcare outcomes.

  • We believe that supporting patients to manage their own health and healthcare has the potential to transform healthcare services.
  • We currently run a quality improvement initiative in Malawi focusing on maternal and neonatal care and Co-Creating Health, a UK programme focusing on the self-management of long-term conditions.
  • In 2005, we spent £0.32 million on this work.

Building and making public the knowledge base for quality and performance improvement.

  • We believe healthcare can’t be improved without a solid evidence-base on what works and what doesn’t.
  • We fund a number of research programmes and studies, the main one being the Quest for Quality and Improved Performance (QQUIP).
  • In 2005, we spent £3 million in this area.


Our investments and expenditure

In 2005, we saw our endowment increase in value to £674 million.  We have a careful investment strategy which spreads our financial risk whilst aiming to maximize our return from investing in equities, bonds, hedge funds and cash.  Each year we consider a spending formula of 4 percent of the average investment portfolio value over the past three years.  The Board use this as a guideline for planning expenditure.

Our staff

We have approximately 50 full-time and part-time staff based in Convent Garden, London.

Our Chief Executive is Stephen Thornton, CBE, who has 20 years’ NHS management experience. Prior to joining the Foundation, Stephen was Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation for five years. Stephen is also a Non-Executive Director of Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS Foundation trusts.

Our Chairman is Sir David Carter who was Chief Medical Officer in Scotland from 1996-2000. Prior to that, he was Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery in Edinburgh from 1988-1996.

David heads up the twelve-strong Board of Governors overseeing the strategic direction of the Foundation’s programme of healthcare quality improvement work. The Board takes decisions on where the Foundation invests its money and for how long. Dr Elizabeth Vallance serves as the Foundation’s Vice-Chair.