What does Tommy's do?

Tommy's funds research into pregnancy problems and provides information to parents. We believe it is unacceptable that one in four women will lose a baby during pregnancy and birth.

When a pregnancy fails or a baby dies, the families affected can be devastated and often have a desperate need to know why. Frustrated at the lack of research that meant they could rarely answer this question, two obstetricians working in the maternity unit at St Thomas' Hospital in London were inspired to start fundraising for more research into pregnancy problems.

Soon, their cause was taken up by others and a charity affectionately known as 'Tommy's' (after St Thomas' Hospital) was born.

That was 1992. Today, we lead the way in maternal and fetal research in the UK. To give every baby the best chance of being born healthy, we work to fund medical research into the causes of premature birth, stillbirth and miscarriage.

We fund three research centres in the UK, including St Thomas' in London, St Mary’s in Manchester and the recently established Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, which focus their research efforts on different issues relating to pregnancy.

We also feel it's important to raise awareness of the facts and to provide free, accurate and up-to-date information for medical professionals and parents-to-be.

This includes a dedicated telephone midwife service, a comprehensive website and free books and leaflets dedicated to promoting health in pregnancy and pre-pregnancy.

We are supported by people who want to do something about the lack of research and information around pregnancy issues like miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth.

We believe every parent has the right to a healthy pregnancy and baby. Our target is to halve the number of babies that die during pregnancy or birth by 2030.

Midwife Emma Lees Laing talks about Tommy's work

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Who are the Tommy's trustees? 

Ron Dennis CBE (Chairman)
Executive Chairman of the McLaren group

Sally Tennant (Chairman)
CEO Kleinwort Benson

Phillip Bennett
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College, London

Anita Charlesworth
Chief Economist, Nuffield Trust

Rod Christie-Miller
Chief Executive, Schillings

John Hampel (Company Secretary)
Partner, Partners Capital

Catherine Hicks
Partner, Brunswick

Sir Richard Lapthorne
Chairman, Cable & Wireless

Dominic Proctor
President, GroupM Worldwide

Steven Russell (Honorary Treasurer)
Non Executive Directorships including Network Rail

Patrick Stead
Chief Executive of EBP Group Ltd

Hayley Tatum
Executive People Director, Asda

Barry Williams
Commercial Director, Asda

How does Tommy's measure success?

We believe it is important to measure our progress as a charity against key measures such as staff costs, donor satisfaction and medical research.

To this end, we provide annual measures reports based on our balanced scorecard.  These are used to determine how well we are doing as a charity, and allow our supporters to clearly see where their money is going.

For more information about how we measure our success, and for this year's reports, please visit our 'Measuring our success' page.

Donations

Tommy's policy on our acceptance or refusal of donations  

Our charity registration

TOMMY'S is a charity registered in England no 1060508 and in Scotland no SC039280.

Registered office: Nicholas House, 3 Laurence Pountney Hill, London EC4R 0BB

VAT registration number 691 4929 94