The Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) and the Nightingale Fund, which is backed by actress Helena Bonham Carter’s family, have announced they are merging.
Through the move the FNF will manage the Nightingale Fund’s funding, which has been looked after by the Bonham Carter and Verney families due to their connections with the iconic nurse.
The decision will strengthen their mission to support nurses and midwives “while honouring Florence Nightingale’s legacy”, they said in statement.
The Nightingale Fund’s acting chair and trustee Tom Bonham Carter added that the charities “will be better equipped” to tackle “ongoing challenges facing nursing”.
“There has been an inexorable rise in the cost of the post registration courses nurses and midwives need to complete to improve their care for patients,” he said.
“At the same time there has been a decrease in the financial support available from the NHS and other healthcare organisations for nurses and midwives to undertake education.”
The Nightingale Fund was set up in 1857 from the original endowment raised through fundraising for Nightingale’s work at the end of the Crimean War. Two years later the iconic nurse used money from the fund to set up a nurses’ training school at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.
Meanwhile UK based FNF was set up almost 90 years ago by a group of international nurses to pay tribute to the life and work of Nightingale. The idea had first been mooted in 1912 and was eventually set up in 1934 as the Florence Nightingale International Foundation. It became FNF in 1994.
🎉 Celebrating NHS's 75th anniversary! 🥳 Meet Louisa, FNF’s Impact Research Fellow turned secret portrait painter and mental health #nurse. 🎨 She's working on a special portrait of Florence, depicting her with her iconic report📜instead of the lamp. (1/2) #NHS75 pic.twitter.com/mdjfLDSv4o
— Florence Nightingale Foundation (@FNightingaleF) July 5, 2023
According to the charity register the FNF’s income for the year ending March 2022 was £3.4m and it spent £2.9m.
Meanwhile, the Nightingale Fund’s income for the year ending June 2022 was £27,002 and its spending was £34,753. During this period 20 grants were awarded ranging from £350 to £1,500.
Recent Stories