About Us

​What do we do?


We fund research, equipment and projects that impact positively on staff wellbeing and patient outcomes. We support bench-to-bedside research activity that sees patients benefit from research findings quickly and safely.


We’re the only NHS charity in the UK providing a hospital-based welfare rights and benefits advice service for patients. We actively prevent homelessness, and we help patients to access the financial and community support they need as a result of their illness.

While many NHS hospitals provide massage therapy for patients with cancer, we’re the only one in the UK providing a hospital-wide clinical massage service for all patients. Our specialist complementary therapy team assists patient recovery and rehabilitation as well as making a positive contribution to patients’ emotional wellbeing. ​

Our 300 volunteers and 14 pet therapy dogs make a direct and meaningful contribution to organisational efficiency, innovation and patient outcomes. There are 20 distinct volunteer roles ranging from the practical to the pastoral, from the everyday to the innovative.


While much of the support we provide is traditionally associated with NHS volunteering - helping patients to get to their appointments in a timely manner, providing mealtime help to patients and running a daily trolley shop service – many roles have been designed to meet a specific need and are unique to the RFL community.


These include delivering virtual reality therapy to staff, soon to be rolled out to patients receiving chemotherapy, and our digital volunteer initiative which sees volunteers supporting patients who lack digital skills, making sure they can access virtual appointments.

We were the first NHS charity in the UK to lower the age for volunteers when we designed our young volunteering programme.


This has traditionally been a springboard for young people in our local communities who want to pursue a career in healthcare. We are now developing that programme to support young people with additional needs. This includes young autistic people and those with learning disabilities.

​Our values

​Our values define the spirit in which we carry out our work and the culture we’ve fostered together.

They reflect our ambition to be a proudly fundraising-focused organisation and our determination to make things better for the patients and staff of our NHS partner.

Text in pink font: Partnership, Respect, Innovation, Dedication, Energy.

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The Harris Hill Salary Survey 2025 graphic with the words
By David Young September 12, 2025
How much do charity CEOs get paid? The short answer is that although charity leaders tend to earn considerably less than their commercial counterparts, pay still varies enormously, depending on factors like the size and complexity of the charity's operations, its annual income, and the scale of the challenge facing the incoming CEO.
Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic with purple spheres labeled temporary, interim, contract, and fixed term.
By David Young September 1, 2025
Tough economic times have certainly had an impact on the number of permanent hires that charities have been able to make this year, but what about temporary and interim positions? Here's what our Temps specialists had to say about the trends they're seeing in the market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .
The Harris Hill Salary Survey 2025 graphic with the words
By David Young September 12, 2025
How much do charity CEOs get paid? The short answer is that although charity leaders tend to earn considerably less than their commercial counterparts, pay still varies enormously, depending on factors like the size and complexity of the charity's operations, its annual income, and the scale of the challenge facing the incoming CEO.
Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic with purple spheres labeled temporary, interim, contract, and fixed term.
By David Young September 1, 2025
Tough economic times have certainly had an impact on the number of permanent hires that charities have been able to make this year, but what about temporary and interim positions? Here's what our Temps specialists had to say about the trends they're seeing in the market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .
The Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic: Yellow spheres with finance, accounting, payroll labels.
By David Young August 27, 2025
Say you work in finance and many will imagine a world of six-figure salaries, baffling spreadsheets, detached houses in the Home Counties and a statistically inexplicable number of people called Steve. Working in charity finance however, is – baffling spreadsheets aside – a rather different story, but with their finger on the pulse and their ear to the ground at all times (we should really get them some chairs), our finance specialists are perfectly placed to bring you up to speed on the latest twists and turns. Here’s what they had to say about remuneration and recruitment trends in the current market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .