Remember us with a Gift in your Will
Thank you for considering this very special way of supporting our work. After you've provided for those closest to you, perhaps you would consider leaving a gift to the South Western Ambulance Charity in your will.
Every gift in every will makes a real difference, no matter how large or small - even 1%.
24% of Wills handled by UK legal advisers include a donation to charity, according to a report from Remember a Charity (2023). Choosing to leave us a gift is easy to arrange and your contribution will be very much valued.
Gifts support our dedicated ambulance staff, provide enhanced equipment for volunteer Community First Responders (CFRs) and improve cardiac arrest survival rates.
If you are even considering leaving us a gift in your will, please do get in touch so we can understand more about any intended gift and how you might like us to use it. We can share with you how other gifts are already being used.
Please seek professional advice to make sure that your wishes are clear and correct. You may need our UK registered charity number which is 1049230.
Supporting Staff Development
In 2019/20 legacy gifts enabled us to provide bursaries of around £1,000 each to 48 students who were undertaking Paramedic development courses with the University of the West of England Distance Learning Programme.
One bursary recipient said; "Bursaries such as this are significant as they not only alleviate a level of difficulty from day to day life but also serve to rejuvenate morale ... helping people such as myself to progress academically and gain further accredited study contributing to progressing in the workplace".
THANK YOU for every donation we receive from Gifts in Wills, large and small, including;
£399 from Ethel - used to provide patient supporting enhanced kit for a Community First Responder volunteer group.
£5000 from Phillip - used to help support staff rewards, awards and enhanced facilities.
£105,000 from Geoffery - used to deliver a major programme to address health inequalities in access to lifesaving defibrillators, helping to improve cardiac survival rates in areas that needed targeted support.
As a member of NHS Charities Together, we’re part of a national campaign involving over 230 NHS charities, working to increase awareness about the difference that leaving a gift in your Will can make.
Whether it’s being there for our wonderful NHS staff, or giving patients extra comfort and care, providing cutting-edge equipment, or driving innovative research to benefit future generations.
When you leave a gift in your Will to us, you’re saying thank you in a way that will carry on making a long-lasting, positive difference long after you’re gone. So please, write a forever thank you into your Will, by leaving a gift to the South Western Ambulance Charity.
The Gift of GoodSAM
We know that for every minute that a cardiac arrest patient doesn't receive CPR or defibrillation, their chance of survival falls by 10%.
A generous legacy gift enabled us to invest £40,000 to fund the implementation of the life-saving App GoodSAM (Smartphone Activated Medics). The App is used to alert trained responders to cardiac arrest incidents in their local community, so they can provide lifesaving support before ambulance crews arrive. The aim is to increase the number of people who survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
SWASFT Clinical Lead Rhys said; "The GoodSAM app is a fantastic innovation, which means our community of volunteers can reach the most seriously ill patients sooner and help to save lives. Every second counts when it comes to cardiac arrest".
Thanks to a legacy gift, the GoodSAM app is helping to improve survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the South West.
Get In Touch
To have a chat about the possibility of making a gift in your will, please contact Louise (Fundraising Manager) or Zoe (Head of Charity) by email charity@swast.nhs.uk or give us a call on 0300 3690108 .
