Friends Voices

Stories of volunteers supporting the health service since 1949

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Friends of King George Hospital

Photograph of a group of people sitting around a garden table

Founded in 1971, the Friends of King George Hospital is a group of volunteers under the League of Friends organisation, dedicated to assisting the patients and staff of the King George Hospital in Ilford. The Friends has made many meaningful contributions over the years, including providing equipment like blood pressure machines, medicine trolleys, and picnic tables for outdoor staff seating. They raise money through the hospital shop and selling books. They are committed to making the King George Hospital environment a better place for patients, staff, and families by providing grants, advice, and information for those in need.

1971

The Friends of King George group was founded by a group of long-standing friends, whose main goal was to run a shop in the hospital that would support the King George Hospital patients and staff in any way they could. Pam and Gerry Goldring, Joyce Macdonald, Cecil and Marie Leighton and Louise & Don Wyman all had two shops running from the start of the Friends into the early 1980’s.

1993

The Friends of King George moved to its current site in Barley Lane.

1993

The new hospital opened a hospital shop, bringing in more funds for the Friends to direct to more ambitious things the hospital needed. This included items to beautify patients’ spaces, more medical equipment, and additional training for staff.

2020

The hospital shop closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but before this the shop was making about £45,000 annually for the King George Hospital.

2020

The League of Friends of King George Hospital was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, for “their valued support of the Trust and its patients.”

2021

The hospital shop, run by the Friends, raised over £2 million for the King George Hospital over their 50 years of running. This fundraising supported the purchase of many important aspects of the hospital, including artwork, wheelchairs, and heart monitors. They also helped fund more complex appliances, such as a handheld imaging system and an upper endoscopy simulation model.

2021

From the support of the fundraising done over the years, the Friends of King George Hospital were able to gift presents to patients and donate money to the hospital wards so that they could decorate the space for Christmas Day.

Photo of the front entrance to the hospital

Stories from Friends of King George Hospital

We've done many good things, which to my mind makes it all worthwhile. I think it's well worth the effort.

Listen 00:16:56

Story: Don and Louise Wyman - Essex, Goodmayes

I can't believe how much money we've raised, and I find that very rewarding. Not just for me, for all the people years ago who started it, and who have kept it going.

Listen 00:07:34

Story: Denise Juggler - Essex, Goodmayes

"I was thinking, I'm going to do something because I knew you don't just sit at home, and twiddle your thumbs, and watch daytime TV."

Listen 00:13:35

Story: Ruth Joyce - Essex, Goodmayes

"We meet up now, you know, every now and again and have lunch together, which is nice now that we've all retired"

Listen 00:09:29

Story: Joan Key - Essex, Goodmayes