Charitable trusts for the benefit of hospitals

Abstract

This chapter discusses the legal powers and duties of trustees and governing bodies of voluntary hospitals, health authorities and NHS trusts constituted under the National Health Service Act 1977, as amended by the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, administering property for charitable purposes. The same rules apply generally to all charity trustees, including for example, leagues of hospitals friends established for helping local hospitals and also the National League of Hospital Friends to which most local leagues are affiliated, though they are quite independent of it. Another example is that of the students’ union at a medical school. In London Hospital Medical College v IRC (1976)¹ it was held that the union was charitable because its purpose was to advance the purposes of the medical school which was itself charitable. This decision was applied in Attorney-General v Ross (1985)² in which a students’ union was held to have been formed for educational and charitable purposes and that its non-charitable political purposes were merely ancillary to its charitable purpose.