The Yeovil District Hospital catchment area runs from the southern edge of the Mendip Hills to the Dorset border, and from Chard in the west to Sherborne in the east. The Friends’ donor map — last drawn in February 2026 — names forty-two towns and villages, with pins clustering most densely in Yeovil itself, Stoke-Sub-Hamdon, Martock, Montacute, Crewkerne, Ilchester, Chard, Castle Cary, Wincanton and Sherborne.
We are particularly grateful to the smaller villages that punch above their weight. Tintinhull’s annual cream-tea fundraiser, founded in 1979, has raised over £62,000 for the Friends. The Norton-sub-Hamdon women’s institute hosts our trolley-stock packing day each November. The Curry Rivel allotment association sells excess produce in our shop and donates the takings back to the wards. The Mudford fishing club delivers a Christmas hamper to the Friends’ office every Christmas Eve, and we are not entirely sure whether it is for us or the matron.
Our donor relationships are deliberately personal. Anyone giving more than £150 in a year is invited to the Anniversary Supper in September; anyone giving more than £30 in a year receives a hand-signed quarterly dispatch. Our administrator writes between thirty and fifty thank-you cards a month, by hand, from the Stoke-Sub-Hamdon office.
The wards we fund
Within Yeovil District Hospital we fund equipment, comforts and welfare improvements across all adult inpatient wards, the children’s outpatients, the maternity unit, the surgical assessment unit, the same-day emergency care unit, and the discharge lounge. We do not fund the emergency department directly, but we keep a packet of biscuits in their staff room and replace it when it runs low.
We do not fund the trust’s research programmes, education, or any activity outside the hospital site. We refer enquiries about end-of-life care to St Margaret’s Hospice Care in Yeovil, who are very kind and very practiced.