Giving to Kings

From the Director of Fundraising, King's College Hospital In answer to the post from Peckham Rose: I was present at the AGM last evening, as was the Chief Executive Tim Smart, the entire communications team and the assistant board secretary, who took minutes. I can say that this question was not raised at the event, in the 30 minutes of Q&A that followed the planned agenda, or afterwards with Tim over coffee. This would have been the best, public, opportunity to raise the question, and the answer would have been full and clear. I'm not sure therefore about the "looks of horror" you saw. Thankyou for your ongoing personal support Hugenot, Keef and others: My first encounter with King's was when my daughter suffered an extradural haematoma (that's a blood clot on the brain), and our ambulance driver told us she wouldn't survive. When she left hospital with us, several weeks later, I was determined to do something to help the hospital and staff that had saved her life. At the time I didn't know a hospital charity existed, or that some of the equipment used by her surgeon was funded by the charity. First I knew of the charity was when my job was advertised - it had my name on it, and here I am still 6 years later! I will never "care less" about King's, and I know that, thanks to Tim's letter, there are several thousand more people who care as much as I do, who have written to tell me so. There will always be naysayers who object to things like this. I take comfort from those wonderful people who recognise that we are trying to make King's a better place for everyone. Jane Ferguson

From the Director of Fundraising at King's Before this gets any further out of hand: King's is not breaking Data Protection Laws. As well as having "Fundraising" included on our DPA register of purposes, I have confirmed and written authorisation from the Information Commissioner's Office that there are no areas for concern in terms of compliance with the DPA with this letter. This has been upheld by advice from our lawyers. Jane Ferguson Director of Fundraising

From the Director of Fundraising at King's Let me make the position absolutely clear one more time. Neither the Charity nor the fundraising department has written to patients - we DO NOT and WILL NOT ever have access to patient records or addresses, without exception. The Hospital's Chief Executive has written a letter which has been sent to the hospital's patients. Contained within the body of the letter, is an invitation to respond (FREEPOST) separately to the Charity, "opting-in" to receive further information about it's work - grants, plans, fundraising etc. There is no expectation to respond to the letter or to donate. Actually I can think of a number of supporters and volunteers who have never made a personal gift, but who have maintained an interest in the Charity for many years. I've always considered myself a grateful patient of King's as much as a professional fundraiser, so please forgive my rather evangelical enthusiasm! Jane Ferguson Director of Fundraising

From the Director of Fundraising at King's A few extra points that you are raising which I feel I need to address: The Data Protection Act prevents anyone from processing data in an unfair way, and I agree I think it would be unfair to decide not to mail somebody by an assessment of their "vulnerability" based on their "age" or the affluence of their postcode. The other issue that has been raised is in relation to the "work of the charity", which has been assumed by your readers to mean solely fundraising, but by which I mean majoratively the charitable grants that the Charity has given and continues to give to the Hospital. In 2009/10 the Charity made around ?3.7million of charitable grants to the hospital, including confirmed funding of a ?1m state-of-the-art CT scanner for the Emergency Department, and this year we complete a ?9m rebuild of the children's hospital, funded largely by charity donations. These examples are important for patients (and your readers) to know - we really do make the difference. Interestingly, as a postscript, the majority of the telephone calls I have received have been to ask to whom cheques should be made payable, because the Chief Executive had forgotten to include this detail in the letter. Clearly we can't keep everyone happy! Jane Ferguson Director of Fundraising

Dear Ladymuck (apologies for the salutation ? I don?t know your real name) As the Director of Fundraising for King's College Hospital, I hope you will allow me the opportunity to respond to your very thought-provoking commentary. All fundraisers target their marketing at people most likely to support their cause - for example someone who goes to a music concert would be a more likely support the arts, somebody who buys pet food is more likely to support animal welfare. Patients who have had a positive experience in hospital are more likely to be interested in how that hospital's charity has made a difference to their care, and possibly in supporting it financially. Let me put your mind absolutely at rest. We are a department within the hospital, but we will never have access to any patient data. Every hospital has a DPA Officer and Caldicott Guardian to ensure that patient data is not used inappropriately. (Some Charity supporters assume that we know their medical history, but we don't). Our Chief Executive has indeed written to you, and to all patients who have attended the hospital in the last 3 months. It was a generic letter, signed by him: at no point did he or anybody else access the content or detail of any individual patient records. The individuals mailed this week has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that recent patients may be more interested in hearing about the Charity than those who were treated longer ago. This mailing will hopefully be repeated quarterly, if the general response is good. I can also point out that the letter is not an appeal for donations: it offers patients the opportunity to choose to receive information about the work of the charity. If patients receiving the mailing are interested in hearing more about the charity, they can send the reply back to us, where they will be entered into our own, separate database (equally highly protected by DPA laws). I count myself as being a grateful patient of King's, after life saving care of my daughter, and my son was born here too. Many grateful patients are moved to support the charity, and this gives all patients the opportunity to choose to do that. In answer to a specific issue on your thread, I can confirm that our Chief Executive leads by example: he gives a not inconsiderable and regular donation to the Charity, as do I. The finances of the Charity are absolutely separate from the hospital - they are an independent organisation and answerable to the Charity Commission and not the Department of Health or Monitor. However, none of us are blind to the fact that the NHS has always been an infinite demand on a finite resource. We are the very first NHS Trust to use this innovative approach, which is why it has taken over twelve months of consultation with lawyers, and the Information Commissioners Office (home of the Data Protection Act) to ensure that this was permissible. The initial response to our first mailing has been astonishingly positive: I really hope that all hospital patients becoming aware of the great work of their charities can become the norm: really community-based pride. You may be interested to know that in some hospitals in the United States, fundraisers are informed with 24 hours notice of all elective patients coming into the hospital in order that they can assess who are likely donors. They then send a fundraiser to meet and greet those patients (free newspapers, flowers, bath robes etc). This is an approach that, while successful, I hope never reaches these shores! While I cannot respond to all the opinions expressed within this thread, I would like to pick up on one in particular: Spark67: you have suggested that we have neither given support for your fundraising, nor have acknowledged your gift, which worries me greatly. Given that we keep a close and personal dialogue with all our fundraisers, acknowledge all gifts received, and cannot find any records of your activities, I wonder where your request for help has been lost. Please contact me directly so we can resolve this for you. I hope that this addresses your concerns; if you would like to find out more, please visit our website www.givingtokings.org.uk or contact me at support@givingtokings.org.uk with appropriate enquiries: I cannot comment on NICE guidelines, individual patient records or examples of care, procurement or remuneration. Jane Ferguson Director of Fundraising King?s College Hospital