The League of Friends of the Yeovil Hospitals is a registered charity raising money for medical equipment, ward comforts, and the small acts of care that make a long admission bearable. We have done this from a shop and a café inside the hospital — and from kitchen tables across South Somerset — for fifty-eight years.
Spent directly on patient care, ward equipment and bedside comforts in the year to 30 September 2024 — every pound raised in the shop, the café and the community.
Our café on Level 2 is where staff come off shift, where families wait, and where the trolley starts every morning at 09.00.
From a portable ultrasound on the assessment unit to a £92 baby-warming blanket on maternity, we fund the equipment the NHS budget cannot reach this year. Every purchase is requested by clinical staff and signed off by the trustees in writing.
Comforts cost little, but on day five of an admission they are the difference between dignified and not.
Our 33 volunteers find work, friendship and a reason to put on a coat in February. The shop rota is the longest-running social club in the building.
Each year we publish our accounts in full and write a short letter explaining where the surplus went and what we got wrong. Members vote at the September AGM.
Our donors are our neighbours and our patients are our donors. The geography is tight — about a thirty-mile radius — and so is the relationship. We don’t fundraise online to strangers; we set up a stall at the Stoke fete.
The headline campaign. Each year we agree a list of kit with the medical director and raise against it until it is bought, named in our annual report, and put on a ward.
Read more 02 · On the ward
The small things — slippers when admission was unexpected, a radio, a bag for valuables, a phone charger. Funded from the shop’s surplus and the trolley float.
Read more 03 · Trading
Open every day from 09.00 to 16.30, run by paid kitchen staff and a rota of volunteers. The kitchen’s annual surplus is the single largest source of grants to the wards.
Read more 04 · Trading
The shop on the main concourse — newspapers, toiletries, gifts, condolences. Seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day. Run by a paid manager and a rota of fourteen volunteers.
Read more 05 · On the ward
The morning round — papers, sweets, drinks, magazines, a friendly word. Volunteers visit every ward except the children’s wing and the emergency department, where we send a packet of biscuits instead.
Read more 06 · For the staff
A small programme funding quiet rooms, kettles, kitchen refits and welfare equipment for ward staff. Begun in the winter of 2020 after the ward sisters told us where it would help.
Read moreThe SAU’s single ultrasound is in use almost every hour of every day. A second machine — quiet, portable, with a cardiac probe — would mean a faster diagnosis for the woman who is in pain at 03.00 and a kinder one for the patient who would not otherwise be moved. The ward asked us in October. We agreed in November. We close the appeal at the end of March.
Wheel the morning trolley round the wards with a colleague. You will sell papers, fill water jugs, change a lightbulb on a bedside lamp, and listen for as long as the patient wants to talk.
Front-of-house in our café on Level 2 — taking orders, clearing tables, restocking the cake counter, and looking out for visitors who are waiting for very difficult news.
Behind the counter in the concourse shop. Sales, stock, and the small, steadying ritual of greeting every patient who comes through the door at 09.00.
Story · Stoke-Sub-Hamdon
Margaret, 78, was admitted in March. The Friends’ trolley brought a radio on day two. She kept it on Radio 3 for the full week.
Story · Crewkerne
David, 64, was admitted on the 23rd of December with chest pain. The Friends-funded ECG monitor was wheeled to his bedside before lunch.
Story · Yeovil
Grace, 31, gave birth to her son at 04.41. By the time the morning round came, a hand-tied bag from the Friends had been left beside her bed.
Charitable expenditure, audited and filed each year with the Charity Commission. The dip in 2021 reflects the months our café was closed during the pandemic.
Six gentle miles, two stiles, and a flask at the war memorial. £8 entry; under-16s free.
Cake stall, bric-a-brac, a small brass band, and the annual tug-of-war between the trolley team and the shop till.
Our fifty-eighth birthday — a supper, a short address from the chair, and the announcement of next year’s appeal.
14 March 2026 · Equipment
The radiology appeal — three years in the writing — closed in late February with £92,140 raised against an £89,000 target. The trustees met on 3 March to sign the cheque.
22 February 2026 · Trading
The café closed for nine days in February while the trust’s contractors replaced the roof. Sales recovered within ten days of reopening. We did not lose a single regular.
7 February 2026 · Comforts
Margaret’s week on the orthopaedic ward, told from the trolley round.
“The Friends gave me back the radio, the crossword and a familiar voice. By the end of the week I had three new ones.”
“Three nights, three readings on the Friends’ monitor, and an early diagnosis. I am still embarrassed by how little fuss they made about it.”
“The tea tray was on my locker before I had remembered my own birthday. That is what they do.”
“Eleven years on the Wednesday rota. I’d be lost without it — and I think the till would be lost without me.”
“The café was the first place I went after my mother’s funeral. They knew without asking.”
“We have worked with the Friends since 2003. They are the most disciplined small charity we know — and the most generous.”
