British Heart Foundation

Charity shop selling a range of good quality donated items and new goods.

What we do

Our vision is a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases. We raise money to research cures and treatments, so we can beat heartbreak forever.

Targeting the world's biggest killers

Research has given us machines that can restart hearts, the ability to fix arteries in tiny babies, the power to give someone a heart they weren’t born with, and so much more.

But heart and circulatory diseases still kill 1 in 4 in the UK, they cause heartbreak on every street. And that’s why our work is as urgent and vital as ever.

Our research is the promise to protect the people we love. Our parents. Our brothers. Our sisters. Our grandparents. Our closest friends.

Research is who we are. The promise of future preventions, treatments and cures.

People’s donations have got us this far. Every breakthrough we’ve made, funded by people like you.

How does the BHF spend donations?

Thanks to the amazing efforts of our supporters, in 2017-18 we raised more than £170 million.

£128 million was spent on life saving research and support for heart patients. £42 million was spent on the costs associated with generating income.

In other words, for every £1 raised, around 75p, went straight to funding research on heart and circulatory diseases, and the risk factors that cause them.

How you can help

There is still so much work we need to do. Seven million people in the UK live with heart and circulatory diseases, and these diseases are responsible for more than quarter of all deaths.

Thank you for all your continued support and donations, but there is still more work to do. Between now and 2020 we will fund more than half a billion pounds of cardiovascular research to save lives. Help us beat heartbreak forever by donating today.

Our strategy

The BHF is here to Beat Heartbreak Forever. We are working towards a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases. Our strategy will guide us to get there sooner, building on six decades of progress.

Since we were founded, our research has helped to reduce deaths from heart and circulatory diseases by more than half. But we cannot stop now.

By 2030, we want to see advances across the spectrum of heart and circulatory diseases; we want to prevent these conditions from developing and we want those with existing conditions to have better, longer lives.