Frequently asked questions
Find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Health Foundation
- What is your overall aim?
- What do you do?
- Who do you work with?
- How are you funded?
- How does the Health Foundation invest its endowment?
- Are you linked to any political party?
- Do you have a conflicts of interest policy?
- Do you work across the whole of the UK?
- Do you do any international work?
- Can anyone apply for funding?
- Once you’ve given out funding, do you monitor the progress of the project?
- What resources do you have for people interested in improving quality of health care services?
- What is your involvement in the BMJ Quality & Safety journal?
- Do you have a regular newsletter?
- Find us on social media
What is your overall aim?
We are an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.
Health is our most precious asset. Good health enables us to live happy, fulfilling lives, fuels our prosperity and helps build a stronger society.
Yet good health remains out of reach for too many people in the UK and services are struggling to provide access to timely, high-quality care. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Our mission is to help build a healthier UK by:
- putting health and inequalities at the heart of decision making
- shaping the future of the health and care system to ensure the best care for all
- building new approaches to testing innovation that could transform health and care.
Find out more in our strategic plan
What do you do?
We work towards our mission to build a healthier UK by:
• generating research and analysis
• testing practical solutions
• bringing people together through convening and partnerships
• and developing networks and long-term capability.
Sign up to our newsletter to hear more about our work
Who do you work with?
We work with a wide range of organisations and individuals to help further our goals. The work that results from any arrangement with another party must align with our charitable objectives, strategy and values.
How are you funded?
We are funded by an endowment of over £1bn, underpinning our independence and ability to work for the long term. Investing this endowment enables us to spend around £50m per year on improving health and care and means we can operate as an entirely sustainable and independent foundation.
Find out more about how we are funded and our history.
How does the Health Foundation invest its endowment?
Our investment policy is updated regularly. Our investment goal is to grow the endowment and to generate enough income to allow us to carry out our charitable activities.
Are you linked to any political party?
No, we aren’t linked to any political party, and we are completely independent of the government. We do, however, work actively to inform the government’s (and other organisations’) development of policy by sharing the learning from our improvement programmes and research and analysis.
Do you have conflicts of interest policy?
We have a conflicts of interest policy to ensure that the decisions taken by the Foundation are independent of outside interests.
Download our policy on conflicts of interest.
Do you work across the whole of the UK?
Yes. To find out more about the projects and people that we fund, browse the projects we've funded.
Do you do any international work?
We are interested in how we can use lessons from overseas to improve health and health care here in the UK.
We support the Sciana network, an initiative bringing together outstanding leaders in health and health care policy and innovation across Europe.
Can anyone apply for funding?
We have an ongoing programme of research, policy analysis and improvement project grants that people and teams can apply for. The application criteria vary between programmes so be sure to read the application documents carefully.
Find out about our current funding opportunities
Once you’ve given out funding, do you monitor the progress of the project?
This varies between programmes, but we ask individuals or teams to report back to us regularly about their progress. We also run independent evaluations of many of our programmes – these are published and available to read.
What resources do you have for people interested in improving health and health care?
We have a range of resources to help you in your work. These include:
- A range of publications on different topics within health and care.
- Recordings of our past events and webinars
- Browse the projects we've funded by topic to give you ideas and inspiration
- A series of quick guides for those working on the frontline to improve quality.
- BMJ Quality and Safety - a journal that we jointly own with the BMJ
- A range of toolkits to help you communicate about your work
- Our health inequalities evidence hub
- Our Policy Navigator microsite
- Our COVID-19 Policy tracker microsite
What is your involvement in the BMJ Quality & Safety journal?
The Health Foundation co-owns the BMJ Quality and Safety journal with the BMJ Group.
The journal aims to advance research and generate new thinking in the areas of quality and safety of health care, and the science of improvement.
Do you have a regular newsletter?
Yes, we send out a weekly email newsletter. Each issue contains blogs, our latest research and analysis and podcast episodes, as well as important dates for your diary.
Find us on social media
As well as signing up for our newsletter, you can also: