Best Software for Health Charities in the UK (2026)

Health charities — hospices, condition-specific organisations, patient support groups — need software that handles beneficiary management, volunteer coordination, outcome tracking, and funder reporting in ways that generic CRMs cannot. Spreadsheets and donor databases are not designed for the complexity of health charity operations, where you might be coordinating hospice befrienders, running peer support groups, tracking quality of life measures, and reporting to NHS commissioners all at once.

This guide compares the best CRM and case management software for UK health charities in 2026, covering what matters most, how the main platforms compare, and how to choose the right one for your organisation.

TL;DR

• Health charities need software that combines beneficiary management, volunteer coordination, outcome tracking, and impact reporting — not just a fundraising database.
• Plinth offers AI-powered case management, AI case notes, volunteer management, partner CRM for NHS referrals, surveys for quality of life measures, and impact reporting from £0. It is purpose-built for UK charities, including health organisations. However, it is not designed as a donor management system — fundraising-heavy health charities may need a separate tool for this.
• Beacon is the strongest option for health charities where fundraising is the primary function, with excellent donor management, Gift Aid, and event features.
• Charitylog and Lamplight are established case management platforms used widely across the health and social care voluntary sector.
• Donorfy suits smaller health charities focused on donor relationships and fundraising campaigns.
• Salesforce is powerful but expensive and requires significant customisation to work for health charities.
• The right choice depends on whether your primary need is service delivery and beneficiary management, fundraising, or both.

The Health Charity Sector in 2026

There are approximately 17,600 registered health organisations in the UK, making health one of the largest charitable sub-sectors. Health charities accounted for 26% of all voluntary income among the top 100 fundraising charities in 2024-25, alongside international development — making them the most significant category by fundraising volume.

The sector is diverse. It includes 191 independent charitable hospices with a combined annual expenditure of £1.5 billion, providing palliative and end-of-life care to 310,000 people each year and direct support to 89,000 family members, friends, and carers. It includes large condition-specific charities like Macmillan Cancer Support, the British Heart Foundation, and Diabetes UK. And it includes thousands of smaller patient support groups, peer networks, and local wellbeing organisations.

Fundraising remains critical. Public donations fell by around 5% in 2024-25, driven by cost-of-living pressures, though legacies rose to £1.98 billion, providing vital stability for many health charities. Looking ahead, 64% of charities feel optimistic about fundraising for 2026, and 77% maintained or grew their fundraising income in 2025.

At the same time, the NHS is increasingly working with voluntary sector health charities. The government's new Diagnosis Connect service, launching in January 2026, will automatically refer hundreds of thousands of patients with long-term conditions — starting with diabetes, mental health, and lung conditions — to specialist charities at the point of diagnosis. In its first two years, the service is expected to support 250,000 people, significantly increasing the referral volumes that health charities must manage.

For health charities, choosing the right software is no longer optional. Whether you are a hospice tracking patient outcomes, a cancer charity coordinating volunteers, or a patient support group managing NHS referrals, the platform you use determines how effectively you can deliver, evidence, and grow your services.

What Health Charities Need From Software

Health charities operate differently from other parts of the voluntary sector. If you are evaluating software, these are the capabilities that matter most.

Patient and Beneficiary Management

At the core, health charities need a system to track the people they support — patients, service users, beneficiaries, carers. This means structured records with health-relevant fields, case histories, interaction logs, and the ability to manage ongoing relationships rather than one-off contacts. 30% of small UK charities still have no CRM system at all, which means many health charities are still relying on spreadsheets or paper records for this critical function.

Volunteer Coordination

Volunteers are the backbone of many health charities, particularly hospices. Hospice befriending schemes, patient transport services, charity shop rotas, and fundraising event teams all require structured volunteer management — recruitment, DBS tracking, rota scheduling, hour logging, and communications. A platform that handles both beneficiary management and volunteer coordination in one place reduces duplication and administrative overhead.

Quality of Life and Outcome Tracking

Health charities must increasingly demonstrate that their services improve health outcomes. This means collecting validated quality of life measures — EQ-5D, WEMWBS, condition-specific patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) — at multiple points in a service journey. Funders and NHS commissioners expect pre-and-post outcome data, and the ability to aggregate this data for reporting is essential. Charities with proper CRM and outcome tracking systems see donor retention rates approximately 15 percentage points higher than those managing relationships in spreadsheets, partly because they can evidence impact more effectively.

NHS Referral Pathways

With Diagnosis Connect and existing social prescribing networks, health charities are receiving more formal referrals from the NHS than ever before. Software needs to track referral sources, manage incoming referrals, and report on referral outcomes to maintain and grow these partnerships. A dedicated partner or referral CRM function is increasingly important.

Support Group and Activity Management

Many health charities run peer support groups, exercise classes, educational workshops, and other group activities. Booking management, attendance tracking, and waitlists need to be handled within the same system that manages beneficiary records so you can see a complete picture of each person's engagement.

Fundraising and Donor Management

Health charities are among the most fundraising-intensive in the UK. Large health charities depend on individual giving, legacies, major donors, events, and corporate partnerships. Smaller ones rely on community fundraising and grants. The extent to which your software needs fundraising features depends on your operating model — some health charities need a fundraising-first CRM, while others primarily need service delivery tools with grant reporting.

Funder and Commissioner Reporting

Whether you report to NHS commissioners, grant funders, or institutional donors, your software must generate reports that demonstrate reach, outcomes, and value for money. Automated impact reporting saves significant staff time — particularly for hospices and condition-specific charities managing multiple funding streams simultaneously.

How the Main Platforms Compare

Plinth

Plinth is purpose-built for UK charities and offers a strong combination of service delivery tools. Its Case Management system uses AI to streamline beneficiary tracking, with AI Case Notes that reduce the time staff spend on record-keeping. The Volunteering module handles recruitment, DBS tracking, scheduling, and hour logging — useful for hospice befriending and patient transport schemes.

For health charities managing NHS relationships, the Partner CRM tracks referral sources and partner organisations, while Surveys supports validated quality of life measures and outcome data collection. Impact Reporting generates funder-ready reports from this data, and Bookings manages support groups and activity sessions.

Plinth starts from £0, making it accessible to smaller health charities. However, it is important to be honest: Plinth is not designed as a donor management or fundraising CRM. If your organisation's primary function is fundraising — as it is for some larger health charities — you will need a dedicated fundraising platform, either instead of or alongside Plinth.

Best for: Health charities focused on service delivery, patient support, volunteer coordination, and outcome tracking. Hospices, patient support groups, and condition-specific charities delivering direct services.

Beacon

Beacon was rated the number one CRM in Fundraising Magazine's 2025 CRM Survey and is built specifically for UK charities. It excels at donor management, Gift Aid processing, event management, and fundraising campaign tracking. For health charities where fundraising is the core function — or where the fundraising team is the primary CRM user — Beacon is a strong choice.

Beacon's starter plan begins at £32.50 per month for up to 2,000 constituents, making it affordable for smaller organisations. It integrates with major payment processors and email platforms.

However, Beacon is a fundraising-first CRM. It does not offer the depth of case management, outcome tracking, or volunteer coordination that service-delivery-focused health charities need. If you run a hospice with complex patient pathways, for example, Beacon alone will not cover your operational requirements.

Best for: Fundraising-focused health charities, condition-specific charities with large individual giving programmes, and organisations where donor management is the priority.

Charitylog

Charitylog is one of the most established charity CRMs in the UK, used by around 1,000 charities. It offers case management, contact tracking, document management, communications, and workflow automation in a single platform. It charges a single annual fee with unlimited user licences, which is attractive for larger teams.

Charitylog is widely used in health and social care charities, particularly those delivering advice, support, and community services. Its reporting tools are solid, and it has a strong track record with funders and commissioners who are familiar with its output formats.

The platform does not currently offer AI-powered features, and its interface feels dated compared to newer entrants. But it is reliable, well-supported by an in-house helpdesk, and trusted across the sector.

Best for: Established health charities with existing Charitylog setups, advice and information services, and organisations that value unlimited user licences.

Lamplight

Lamplight is a cloud-based CRM used by over 700 charities, social enterprises, and non-profits. It is particularly strong on outcome tracking, supporting a wide range of open-source and licensed measures including Core 10, PHQ-6, and Outcome Stars — making it well-suited to health charities that need to report on validated health outcome tools.

Lamplight is ISO 27001 accredited with all data stored in the UK on encrypted AWS servers. Since 2016, it has supported almost 200 charities through the Lloyds Bank Foundation, providing their first year of Lamplight as part of the foundation's capacity-building support.

Lamplight's customisation options are extensive, but this means setup can take longer than simpler platforms. It does not have dedicated volunteer management or fundraising modules, so larger health charities may need additional tools.

Best for: Health charities with complex outcome measurement requirements, organisations using validated PROMs, and charities that need ISO 27001 accredited data security.

Donorfy

Donorfy is a cloud-based CRM designed for the UK charitable sector, with a focus on fundraising, donor management, and communications. It offers an intuitive interface with Gift Aid, direct debit integration, and campaign management.

For smaller health charities where fundraising is the main operational need, Donorfy provides a lower-cost alternative to Beacon with solid core features. It integrates with popular email marketing tools and payment platforms.

Like Beacon, Donorfy is a fundraising CRM rather than a service delivery platform. It does not offer case management, outcome tracking, or volunteer coordination at the depth health charities delivering services would need.

Best for: Smaller fundraising-focused health charities and patient support groups with straightforward donor management needs.

Salesforce (Nonprofit Cloud)

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud is the most powerful and flexible option on this list. With sufficient budget and technical resource, it can be configured to handle fundraising, case management, volunteer tracking, outcome measurement, and virtually any other requirement.

The trade-off is cost and complexity. Salesforce licences, implementation, and ongoing customisation are expensive. Most health charities — particularly small and mid-sized organisations — will find it disproportionate to their needs and budget. The total cost of ownership, including consultancy and ongoing administration, typically runs into tens of thousands of pounds annually.

Best for: Large national health charities with dedicated IT or data teams, complex multi-programme operations, and the budget to support ongoing Salesforce development.

Comparison Table

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best CRM for hospice charities in the UK?

Hospices need a combination of patient and family support tracking, volunteer coordination (particularly for befriending schemes), quality of life outcome measures, and strong funder reporting. Plinth is a strong fit because it covers case management, volunteering, surveys, and impact reporting in a single platform. Hospices with a heavy fundraising focus may also need Beacon or Donorfy alongside a service delivery tool. Charitylog is widely used by hospices that have been established for many years and already have it embedded in their workflows.

Do health charities need different software from other charities?

Yes, in several important ways. Health charities typically need validated health outcome measures (EQ-5D, WEMWBS, condition-specific PROMs), NHS referral pathway tracking, volunteer coordination for patient-facing roles with appropriate safeguarding checks, and the ability to report to both health commissioners and charitable funders. Generic charity CRMs designed primarily for fundraising do not cover these requirements without significant workarounds. The 310,000 people supported by hospices alone, plus the hundreds of thousands managed by condition-specific charities, require purpose-built tools.

Can we use one platform for both service delivery and fundraising?

This is one of the most common challenges for health charities. Most platforms are strong in one area but not both. Plinth excels at service delivery, case management, and outcome tracking, but does not handle donor management well. Beacon and Donorfy excel at fundraising but lack case management depth. Salesforce can do both but at significant cost. Many mid-sized health charities use two platforms — one for service delivery and one for fundraising — with data shared between them through exports or integrations. This is a pragmatic approach, and it is worth factoring integration requirements into your evaluation.

How should health charities prepare for NHS Diagnosis Connect referrals?

With Diagnosis Connect launching in 2026 and expected to support 250,000 people in its first two years, health charities need systems that can handle increased referral volumes efficiently. This means having a clear referral intake process in your software, the ability to track referral sources (to evidence your value to NHS partners), and capacity to report on referral outcomes. Plinth's Partner CRM is designed for exactly this kind of partner referral tracking. Charitylog and Lamplight also support referral management workflows.

Recommended Next Pages

• Case Management Software for Charities — a broader look at case management platforms across the charity sector
• Volunteer Management Software — detailed comparison of volunteer coordination tools
• CRM for Charities — general guide to choosing a charity CRM
• Impact Reporting — how to measure and report on your charity's outcomes
• Referral Software for Charities — managing referral pathways and partner relationships
• Software for Mental Health Charities — specific guidance for mental health organisations

Last updated: February 2026 Supporting health and wellbeing? Book a demo or contact our team.