This section brings together our guidance, reports, key decisions and other resources that could help trustees understand the scope of ‘the advancement of health and the saving of lives’.

What is meant by ‘the advancement of health and the saving of lives’?

1. The advancement of health includes the prevention or relief of sickness, disease or human suffering, as well as the promotion of health. It includes conventional methods as well as complementary, alternative or holistic methods which are concerned with healing mind, body and spirit in the alleviation of symptoms and the cure of illness. To be charitable there needs to be sufficient evidence of the efficacy of the method to be used. Assessing the efficacy of different therapies will depend upon what benefits are claimed for it (i.e. whether it is diagnostic, curative, therapeutic and/or palliative) and whether it is offered as a complement to conventional medicine or as an alternative. Each case is considered on its merits but the House of Lords Report 1 on complementary and alternative medicine provides a useful guide.

2. The relief of sickness extends beyond the treatment or provision of care, such as a hospital, to the provision of items, services and facilities to ease the suffering or assist the recovery of people who are sick, convalescent, disabled or infirm or to provide comforts for patients. 3. The saving of lives includes a range of charitable activity directed towards saving people whose lives are in danger and protecting life and property.

4. Examples of the sorts of charities and charitable purposes falling within this description include:

• charities that provide (conventional and/or complementary, alternative or holistic) medical treatment, care and healing, such as hospitals and healing centres, and charities supporting their work or associated with them, e.g. Hospital Leagues of Friends;
• charities that provide comforts, items, services and facilities for people who are sick, convalescent, disabled or infirm, e.g. Hospital Radio;
• medical research charities;
• charities that provide services and facilities for medical practitioners, such as homes for nurses;
• charities that ensure the proper standards of medical practice, e.g. the General Medical Council;
• charities that promote activities that have a proven beneficial effect on health;
• charities that provide rescue services, such as lifeboats, mountain rescue, fire, ambulance, air ambulance and first aid services, or which assist the work of the police and rescue services for example by providing emergency radio communication at national and local disasters;
• charities set up to assist the victims of natural disasters or war;
• the provision of life saving or self defence classes;
• the provision of blood transfusion services.

Related decisions of the Commission

General Medical Council (“GMC”)

Consideration of an application for charitable status by the body responsible under statute for the registration of medical practitioners in the UK and the regulation of the training for, and the practice of medicine by, those registered medical practitioners. The Commissioners considered the court (and therefore the Commission’s) ability (jurisdiction) to consider an organisation’s status which has previously been considered by the courts and the use of extraneous materials when considering issues of charitable status.

GMC’s activities were directed to the regulation and supervision of the profession. The Commissioners considered in what circumstances a body set up to regulate the profession could be charitable. They concluded that the purpose of the GMC was to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the community by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine. This was charitable, being analogous to the protection of life and property and the promotion of health and public benefit being evident.

View full document

Living in Radiance

Review of a decision concerning an application for charitable status by an organisation promoting The Radiance Technique which is described as a “precise technique for balancing your energies throughout your whole physical-emotional-mental-spiritual dynamic”.

The Commissioners considered whether the organisation’s activities were in furtherance of any of the following charitable purposes: advancing education; advancing health; or promoting the moral or spiritual welfare or improvement of the community.

The Commissioners concluded that the organisation’s activities were not sufficiently structured or have the appropriate level or quality of material to be considered to be advancing education as understood in charity law. The Commissioners were satisfied that it had not been demonstrated to them that the organisation’s activities may or would be capable of promoting the moral or spiritual welfare or improvement of the community. The Commissioners further concluded that some proof of efficacy would be required before accepting that a particular therapy was capable of advancing health for the public benefit. It was also noted that The Radiance Technique does not claim to be a medical science.

It was therefore concluded that the organisation is not a charity.

View full document

National Federation of Spiritual Healers

Review of a decision concerning an application for charitable status by an organisation promoting spiritual healing. The Commissioners considered the promotion of public health and the relief of sickness as charitable purposes, as well as the Commission’s approach to considering Complementary and Alternative Therapies (CATs). Having considered the evidence presented, the Commissioners considered that the promotion of spiritual healing was capable of being charitable as relieving stress and promoting public health in certain circumstances.

View full document

Odstock Private Care Limited

Odstock Private Care Limited was proposed for registration with objects to relieve sickness and preserve the health of patients by providing healthcare facilities and ancillary services at Salisbury District Hospital.

The decision includes consideration of concerns that people in poverty would be precluded from benefit for lack of ability to meet the high costs charged by the organsiation.

View full document