125 years of
The King's Fund
a timeline
Established in 1897 by the then Prince of Wales, the Prince of Wales Hospital Fund for London was set up with the aim of raising money for London’s voluntary hospitals. Still more than half a century before the establishment of the National Health Service, the health system at this time looked very different to what we know today. Hospitals provided care for the poor, while those who could afford it were given care at home. However, hospitals were also sites of great innovation and sat at the forefront of medical teaching and learning.
The scientific advancements of the Victorian age sat side by side with the more negative effects of the industrial revolution, which had brought about large changes to big cities that widened the gap between rich and poor. Attitudes of the day saw poverty as a ‘social ill’ brought about by the inability or unwillingness to work. As such there was little government intervention to improve conditions for those experiencing poverty. Although by the end of the 1800s there was an increasing awareness of inequalities and their causes, any provision to improve these conditions relied largely on the philanthropic efforts of charitable organisations and donations from wealthy individuals.
In this context, The Prince of Wales Hospital Fund for London was established. Its origins can be traced to a meeting in 1896 between the Prince of Wales, Sir Henry Burdett – widely known for his interest in hospitals and nursing, in particular – and Alfred Fripp, a surgeon from Guy's Hospital. It was at this meeting that the Prince of Wales agreed to host a fundraising dinner to raise money for a central fund for London hospitals. The list of invitees included financiers, religious leaders and politicians.
Shortly after this initial dinner, on 6 February 1897 a letter announcing the creation of the Prince of Wales Hospital Fund for London, signed by the Prince of Wales, was printed in The Times. In that first year the Fund had hoped to raise between £100,000 and £150,000 – the first annual report shows that the Fund far surpassed this target, raising £227,551.
This initial fundraising drive included selling commemorative stamps, each displaying the crest of a London hospital that would be supported by the Fund. This raised £34,000 before the Bank of England destroyed the plates on 9 July 1897 to ensure that these stamps remained a limited-edition souvenir.
During the early part of the 20th century, The King Edward’s Fund Hospital Fund for London would continue to focus on raising money for voluntary hospitals and championing the work they did.
1897
The Prince of Wales’s Hospital Fund for London is launched
The King’s Fund was founded as an initiative of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) to fundraise for voluntary hospitals in London. Initially known as The Prince of Wales’s Hospital Fund for London, the Fund collected donations totalling more than £250,000 in its first ten months.
Several of the individuals and organisations who donated money and helped to establish The King’s Fund were linked with slavery and colonialism through their family backgrounds and business connections. You can find out more about this and our commitment to address this part of our history here.
1898
The Hospital Visiting Committee is established
This committee organised the work of a pool of volunteers who inspected every eligible hospital that applied for a grant from the Fund. Hospital visits were carried out by pairs of visitors made up of one medical visitor and one lay visitor.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on patient experience.
1902
The Fund becomes the King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London
1902 marked the coronation of King Edward VII and with that, a change in name for the Fund in order to reflect the Prince of Wales’s ascent to the throne. To commemorate this occasion, a Coronation Gift Committee was established to raise additional funds to distribute to London’s voluntary hospitals. As well as receiving significant donations from Moët & Chandon and the City of London Corporation, money was also raised from a concert held at the Royal Albert Hall, a ball at the Crystal Palace and a competition for a new march to be played at the coronation.
1907
The Fund is incorporated by an Act of Parliament
George V, the then-Prince of Wales and President of the Fund argued that the Fund should be incorporated by Act of Parliament to put it on a more defined footing. The Act of Parliament gave the Fund the responsibility to ‘promote the support benefit of extension of the hospitals of London.’
1916
Our first report on workforce is published
In response to concerns about inadequate hospital pensions, particularly in smaller hospitals, Pensions for hospital officers and staff made recommendations towards provision of pensions and continuity of service for hospital staff. Not long after this, in 1926, the Fund would start to make annual grants to support pension schemes for hospital officers and nurses.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
1918
First women appointed as hospital visitors for the Fund
At this time, while women could qualify as doctors, it was notoriously difficult for them to practice medicine in general hospitals, routinely overlooked by their male counterparts. Whether the appearance of women on the Visitor role is down to women’s suffrage or a change in attitudes brought about by the women who treated, nursed and cared for the wounded coming back from war is undocumented in our archives, but it is notable that a number of pioneering women became involved with The Fund following the end of the war.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
Poster for the Save Your Hospitals campaign, 1922
Poster for the Save Your Hospitals campaign, 1922
1922
Save our hospital poster campaign was launched as part of the "Combined Appeal" to raise money for London hospitals.
To support London’s voluntary hospitals in raising money, the Fund launched the broadest fundraising campaign it had ever undertaken. Previously, the majority of the Fund's donations had come from ‘subscriptions’ – annual rolling donations from wealthy individuals, companies or guilds. The Royal Family were subscribers, with King Edward VII donating £1,000 annually. Recognising that this alone was not enough, the combined appeal adopted a model of fundraising that paved the way for charity trends that we see today.
Find out more about the Hospital of London Combined Appeal.
1933
Miniature hospital was first displayed at The Building Centre in London
The `Miniature Hospital' exhibition was a result of a suggestion made in the Autumn of 1929 to the Propaganda Committee of the Fund that a scale model of a modern hospital, complete as far as practicable in its smallest details, would result in a more general understanding of the hospitals' manifold functions and their importance in the life of every individual, and consequently in a deeper sense of personal responsibility for their maintenance.
Find out more about the miniature hospital.
1938
Emergency Bed Service begins operating
The Voluntary Hospitals Emergency Bed Service was established to facilitate the admission of acute and emergency cases to Voluntary Hospitals. Initially open from 8am – 10pm, it became a 24 hour service within a few months and to mark the inauguration of the 24-hour service there was a special radio broadcast. The Emergency Bed Service continued to well into the mid-1970s.
1940
The Nursing Recruitment Centre is established
Established in partnership with the Government’s Voluntary Hospitals Committee and Royal College of Nursing as a careers service for those who were interested in the profession. By the end of the first two years, over 2,000 women had been accepted for training through the Nursing Recruitment Centre.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
1945
Training bursaries introduced
In collaboration with some of the larger hospitals in London, the Fund started offering a limited number of bursaries for men whose careers had been interrupted by the war to retrain as hospital administrators.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
1947
The Fund celebrates its 50th anniversary
An article published in The Times on 3 February 1947 reflected that, ‘during the last 50 years The King’s Fund has occupied a unique position in the hospital world, and its history is bound up with the changes which have transformed the hospital scene. With its aid the voluntary system survived the financial crisis of the years immediately following the war of 1914–18.’
1948
The birth of the NHS
The new NHS system meant that most voluntary hospitals would now be administered by the state and would no longer need the financial support of the Fund. This offered an opportunity for the Fund to use its resources on other projects to improve health care.
Find out more about the Fund’s work during this period.
Widening the Fund’s focus to health and social care
Following the introduction of the NHS, the Fund began work to improve social care provision with a report looking at the work of hospital ‘almoners’: trained hospital social workers who helped to co-ordinate aftercare for people leaving hospital. The Fund recognised the importance of this role and offered bursaries to people wishing to train in this field.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on health inequalities.
1949
First staff college is established
After the establishment of the NHS, it soon became clear that there was a role for the Fund in supporting the standardisation of the management and leadership across the new health service. Over the course of the 1940s and 1950s, the Fund opened staff colleges, each focused on the development of different skills or staff groups: nurses, hospital catering staff and managers.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
1950
The Fund opens its first rehabilitation homes
Five rehabilitation homes were initially opened in 1950, with a group of 12 eventually established, intended to aid the recovery of elderly and sick patient.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on health inequalities.
1954
Hospital to home
As early as the 1950s, the Fund was not only involved with hospitals but also convalescent and recovery homes for people after they were discharged from hospital, providing accommodation, care and nursing to aid recovery.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on integrated care.
1968
Working together
An early example of the Fund's advocacy for integrated care was work sharing local examples of best practice of co-ordination and co-operation across health services, with the aim of informing the discussion around the government’s Green Paper on the administrative structure of medical and related services in England and Wales.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on integrated care.
1972
Developing system leaders
An early example of the Fund's advocacy for integrated care was our work on sharing local examples of best practice in co-ordination and co-operation across health services with the aim of informing the discussion around the government’s Green Paper on the administrative structure of medical and related services in England and Wales.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on integrated care.
Room for improvement
By the 1970s and 1980s, the work of the Fund was beginning to highlight the health inequalities experienced by people with disabilities or long-term conditions. Room for Improvement, published in 1972, advocated for better environments for people with learning difficulties in both residential accommodation and hospitals.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on health inequalities.
1982
Introduction of the Corporate Management Programme, now known as Top Manager Programme (TMP)
A new course called the ‘Corporate Management Development Programme was introduced. This programme evolved from the recommendations of the Thwaites Report. The programme represented a new contribution to management development in health services, aimed at senior leaders.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
1985
The King’s Fund Institute was established
The primary aim of the Institute was to contribute to improving the quality of public debate about health policy through the production of impartial analyses.
1988
The Fund published a report called The nation's health : a strategy for the 1990's
This report was from an Independent Multidisciplinary Committee, chaired by Professor Alwyn Smith. It set out to review the progress in public health over the last decade. Seeking trends in health and to identify measures likely to be effective in promoting the public health. It outlined a national strategy for the next decade, identifying the public responsibilities of government and of the national agencies as well as health, and local, authorities.
1995
Health, ‘race’ and ethnicity: making sense of the evidence
This comprehensive literature review on the health status of Black and ethnic minority groups in the UK highlighted a complex landscape where health inequalities existed both between different ethnic groups and across different health conditions. People from ethnic minority groups were less likely to access the health care they need, and when they did they were more likely to report poorer experiences.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on health inequalities.
1997
The Fund celebrates its centenery
In the foreword to the 1997 annual report, the then-Prince of Wales, King Charles III reflected that ‘people engaged in giving medical, nursing and social care, people managing these services, and most of all the ordinary people who rely on them, all deserve our imaginative, focused and compassionate support. A hundred years ago that was why the Fund was established. It is its purpose today – and no doubt will still be so in the year 2097.’
2004
Securing good health for the whole population
The Wanless report
In 2002, Sir Derek Wanless, the former chief executive of NatWest Group, published Securing Our Future Health for the Treasury. One of the recommendations of this report into future health care trends and spending was that a similar review of social care was needed.
In 2005, The King's Fund commissioned Sir Derek to conduct a review. Derek Wanless's final report, Securing Good Care for Older People, published in March 2006, looked at the challenges facing social care over the next 20 years, the resources that would be needed to meet them, and the options for finding those resources.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on health inequalities.
2009
A new Royal Charter
While the Fund was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1907, in 2009 it was incorporated by a new Royal Charter. It unsurprisingly became increasingly difficult to square its provisions and governance arrangements with a modern health system and today's more rigorous demands for good practice in charitable governance, and the Royal Charter meant that the fund could define its own objectives and had powers to govern its own affairs.
Find out more about the Fund’s Royal Charter.
2010
Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review)
This review was undertaken by Sir Michael Marmot who chaired an independent review to propose the most effective evidence-based strategies for reducing health inequalities in England from 2010.The final report, 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives', was published in February 2010.
In 2015 the Fund published Inequalities in life expectancy assessing whether the Marmot ‘curve’ had changed over time and the impact of government policy on inequalities in health over the period 1999–2003 to 2006–10. This study brought together, for the first time at a small area level, data on a wide array of variables for 6,700 areas of England on wider determinants, lifestyles, demographics and public service variables widely thought to be significant in determining health and health inequalities.
2011
NHS leaders: no more heroes
Our landmark Commission on Leadership and Management in the NHS in 2011 challenged some of the negative attitudes towards managers and argues that the NHS is able to rise to the challenge only if the contribution of managers is recognised and valued.
Find out more about the Fund’s work on leadership and management.
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