Sutton councillors have agreed to highlight the plight of the Hope for Tomorrow organisation and the unequal treatment of medical charities for VAT purposes when they providing services to the NHS.

The Hope for Tomorrow charity recently chose the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton as the location for a Mobile Chemotherapy Unit – one of only twelve around the country. This unit provides help and care for cancer patients in the local area closer to their homes.

The charity funds each unit at a cost of at least £250,000, including support and transport costs. Each mobile unit can treat four NHS patients at one time, uses NHS doctors to treat patients and prescribes NHS medication. The NHS also insures the units and pays for fuel.

HMRC has ruled recently though that the Hope for Tomorrow charity is not exempt from paying VAT at 20% for build costs, unlike NHS-owned facilities. As a result, the charity has had to repay VAT amounting to £125,000 in the last nine months alone. All new-build mobile units will now cost £53,000 more as a result of VAT being levied on each unit.

Following the ruling, the charity’s management board has said that it cannot afford to use its money to appeal against this ruling by HMRC.

“It is shocking that HMRC thinks it is right that a charity providing such vital services to cancer patients should be charged VAT.

“Hope for Tomorrow’s mobile units are treating NHS cancer patients, using NHS doctors and prescribing NHS medication. But the taxman treats them differently to any wholly NHS-owned facility. It’s not right or fair. “