Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity (BWHC) is the official charity for ten hospitals in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare. Working alongside NHS staff, we improve the experiences patients have in our hospitals, fund the latest technology, support innovative treatments and help fund internationally important medical research.

You can join us and support patients by sharing this fundraising page with your friends and family.

Or if you’re a regular cyclist, we appreciate you might not feel comfortable asking friends and family to sponsor you, but you can still do your bit for your hospitals in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.

If every rider in this year’s Great Weston Ride donated £36, the same as your entry fee to the event, you could fund research into prostate cancer, making diagnosis quicker, easier and less invasive.

Donating £57, £1 per mile, could help us improve the experience patients with dementia have during their stay in hospital. You can help provide gardening sessions, colour-coded bed bays and bedside activities.

Or if you can’t stretch to that, every donation helps. A donation of just £10 could fund an educational game for children to use in the school room during a long stay in hospital.

The Challenge

The Great Weston Ride is a 57-mile challenge bike ride from Bristol to Weston-super-Mare that follows a spectacular route through the Mendips and across the Somerset Levels.

It's an award-winning event that's received major recognition for its positive and valuable contribution to people's health and wellbeing.

Last year, in the company of 800 riders in total, we saw 50 BWHC riders over the Great Weston Ride finish line, raising over £25,000 to make a real difference to the health and happiness of our community.

The Cause

By taking on the Great Weston Ride and fundraising for Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity, you’ll be helping the 10 hospitals that we support in the Bristol and Weston area. Every year, over 13,000 NHS staff provide care to over one million patients in our hospitals. Chances are you, or someone you love, has been treated at one of our hospitals.

The Difference You’ll Make

Your support will help us go above and beyond for patients, their families, and our amazing NHS staff. Here are just a few examples of the amazing projects we’ve been able to fund in these hospitals thanks to fundraisers taking on events like the Great Weston Ride:

• A new children’s research centre at the heart of Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, the South West’s leading specialist hospital for children. This ground-breaking facility has transformed treatments and means staff can take on 30% more research projects every year.

• You might have seen the Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity buses around the centre of Bristol and now travelling from Bristol to Weston and back. These are the free hospital shuttle buses, supported by your fundraising. These buses mean staff and patients have a free and easy way to get to the hospitals.

• Maintenance of the Rainbow Garden at Weston General Hospital. This allows our hardworking NHS staff and poorly patients a quiet area to rest away from the ward.