New rules on spending NHS charity fund

Trustees of a charity fund at NHS Tayside met this week to discuss new guidance.

The board of the health board’s endowment fund met at Ninewells Hospital on Tuesday and approved a number of actions, including a set of terms of references for the endowment advisory group.

These new actions mean money from the charity fund cannot be retrospectively approved for projects which were previously funded by exchequer cash.

The board took £2.71m from the charity fund to pay for updates to its IT systems earlier this year.

When the story was reported in April health bosses defended the decision by claiming the money was spent on “patient-facing” IT systems such as booking systems and telehealth video technology.

At the meeting the trustees agreed to hold a review of how the fund is run to make sure the money is spent appropriately.

The review will include conforming to the standards and recommendations set by both the NHS and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and will look at changing the code of corporate governance and auditing of the fund.

John Brown, chairman of the board of trustees, said: “This was a very productive meeting where trustees agreed a number of important actions.

“As board trustees of this fund it is important that we are transparent so the public and our staff can be reassured and see exactly what their donations are being used for.

“Our board of trustees’ meetings are in public and I would encourage anyone to come along and see how donations and other funds are used and what a difference they are making to health and care here in Tayside.”

At the meeting the board also approved grants from the fund. Almost £90,000 was approved to support research into hormone disorders and £50,000 was spent on ultrasound equipment in the clinical research centre at the University of Dundee.