Eastside People delivers due diligence consultancy and finds interim finance manager for Buckinghamshire Healthcare Charity merger
Summary
- Project: Merger due diligence consultancy and sourcing an interim finance manager
- Project duration: 6 months
- Eastside People team members involved:
Background
Buckinghamshire Healthcare Charity supports patients, families, and NHS services across Buckinghamshire.
It was formed through the merger of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Charitable Fund (a hospital charity) and Scannappeal, which raised funds for life-saving medical equipment in local NHS hospitals across the county.
During 2025, driven by opportunity, Scannappeal and the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Charitable Fund decided to merge. A merger would enable them to combine their fundraising strengths to raise more money, support wider projects, and provide better medical equipment and patient environments across Buckinghamshire hospitals.
As well as beginning the complex process to merge, they also planned to transition the hospital charity from a corporate trustee model into a new independent charity.
This dual process required the organisations to bring together two established charities while simultaneously creating a new entity. This included setting up governance, financial systems and operational processes from scratch. With a fixed deadline date of 1st April 2026 to launch the new charity, the work needed to be delivered at pace and with a high degree of coordination.
Eastside People was engaged to provide due diligence support to inform the merger, and at the same time, our specialist charity recruitment team was engaged to find an interim finance leader to help establish the new organisation and ensure a successful transition.
As Nicola Gilham, Chair of Buckinghamshire Healthcare Charity, explained:
“There was a lot going on. We had to get ourselves in a position to be ready when we went live, and at the same time manage the complexity of bringing two organisations together and setting up something new. For these reasons we chose Eastside People to work with us on the merger project because we knew they were the experts in this field and would be able to help us to get the job done and done well.”
The Challenge
A key part of the challenge was that Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Charitable Fund was not an independent organisation. As a hospital charity operating under a corporate trustee model, it formed part of the NHS Trust rather than existing as a standalone charity. In order to complete the merger, it first needed to be established as a new independent entity, with its own governance, financial systems and operational structure. This meant that the project was not simply a merger of two charities but also required a significant organisational transition for one of the merging organisations.
While charity mergers are inherently complex, this situation involved multiple layers of change taking place at the same time. It required entirely new systems, processes and infrastructure to be put in place, including establishing financial controls, governance structures, banking arrangements and regulatory compliance, while preparing to transfer assets, liabilities and staff into the new organisation.
The timescales added further complexity. With a fixed deadline to launch the new charity, there was limited room for delay, and the work needed to progress at pace while maintaining accuracy and accountability. As Nicola Gilham, Chair of Buckinghamshire Healthcare Charity, explained:
“It was a mountain we had to climb. We had to set up everything from scratch, including financial systems, governance and tricky things like banking arrangements, while also merging the two organisations. And it was a tight timeframe. We knew that we didn’t have the skills and resources to do this on our own and that with multiple workstreams running in parallel and a high degree of uncertainty around how the new organisation would take shape, it was essential to have expert support that could provide both clarity and practical guidance throughout the process.”
As Cara Evans, Eastside People’s Head of Partnerships and Mergers explains:
“We know one thing for certain; no two partnership or merger journeys are the same. And this one had its own complexity and challenge. At Eastside People we design bespoke solutions, grounded in a deep understanding of each organisation and what they ultimately want to achieve and by when.”
