COVID-19 response: Supporting health professionals and volunteers

Being there for healthcare staff and volunteers

Health professionals and volunteers have shown unwavering dedication and strength since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. We wanted to partner with organisations who stand alongside NHS staff, offering them time, skills and support. So we gave grants to health and first aid charity St John Ambulance and London North West Healthcare Charity, which supports the NHS.

Our grant of £10,000 to London North West Healthcare Charity helped support staff wellbeing at Northwick Park, St Mark’s, Ealing and Central Middlesex Hospitals, Meadow House Hospice and across their community services.
St John Ambulance volunteers have offered more than 200,000 hours of support to the NHS and communities during the first few months of the pandemic. We supported them with a grant of £25,000.

Training for St John Ambulance volunteers

COVID-19 is a new virus with an extraordinary impact. There was a lot to learn about it in a very short time. In March, St John Ambulance started providing their volunteers with additional COVID-19 training so they could care for patients in hospitals and emergency wards, safely respond to emergency calls, and transport patients with suspected coronavirus symptoms. It’s St John Ambulance’s biggest deployment since the Second World War and the charity desperately needed funds to keep going. Our grant contributed to the training of over 800 volunteers in first aid and COVID-19 care.

Caring for healthcare staff in north London

Staff at London hospitals and community services are facing unimaginable challenges as they fight against COVID-19. Every day they put themselves on the front line, doing more than we can ever know to protect and care for people. They’re under the most extreme pressure. That’s why we gave a grant to the London North West Healthcare Charity’s COVID-19 Staff Well-Being Appeal. The Appeal is providing mental health support for staff across Northwick Park, St Mark’s, Ealing and Central Middlesex Hospitals and Meadow House Hospice. It funded vital wellbeing spaces for staff to relax during breaks, and care packages, with things like toothpaste and hand cream, for those who don’t get to go home between shifts.

“NHS staff and the volunteers that support them have been the backbone of the UK’s response to the pandemic. We at Kusuma Trust consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to support such valuable work.”

Roisin Blake, Grants Manager, Kusuma Trust