Common questions about The Heart of Kent Hospice's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is The Heart of Kent Hospice a good charity? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice scores 86 out of 100 (4 stars — Good) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 63% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are up to date. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.
Is The Heart of Kent Hospice a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists The Heart of Kent Hospice as a registered charity (charity number 298164). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=298164&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.
What is The Heart of Kent Hospice's charity number? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice's charity number is 298164. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.
What is The Heart of Kent Hospice's charity rating? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice scores 86 out of 100 on CharityCompare (4 stars — Good). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.
Does The Heart of Kent Hospice have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for The Heart of Kent Hospice. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (one red flag on this profile: high fundraising costs). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.
How much of my donation reaches The Heart of Kent Hospice? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 63% of The Heart of Kent Hospice's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.
What are The Heart of Kent Hospice's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 37% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 40% of expenditure (2023–2025, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at The Heart of Kent Hospice. The Heart of Kent Hospice's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports 6 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £100,001–£110,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does The Heart of Kent Hospice receive? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice reported £11m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: growing.
Are The Heart of Kent Hospice's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: up to date (last filing 2026-01-30). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is The Heart of Kent Hospice based? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice's registered contact address is in Maidstone (ME20 7PU). It tells the regulator it operates in Kent, with a focus on hospices.
How much is The Heart of Kent Hospice's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. The Heart of Kent Hospice's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports 6 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £100,001–£110,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.
Where does The Heart of Kent Hospice's money come from? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice reported £11m total income for the year ending 31 March 2025. The largest sources were donations and legacies £8m (70%), trading and fundraising events £2.7m (24%), charitable activities £599k (5%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £4.5m.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to The Heart of Kent Hospice? +
The register records The Heart of Kent Hospice as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.
Are The Heart of Kent Hospice's trustees paid? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
What was The Heart of Kent Hospice previously called? +
The register lists this previous name for The Heart of Kent Hospice: The Maidstone Hospice Appeal.
When was The Heart of Kent Hospice registered as a charity? +
The Heart of Kent Hospice was entered on the register on 18 January 1988. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 02184005).
How does CharityCompare score The Heart of Kent Hospice? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in The Heart of Kent Hospice's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.
How often is this page updated? +
This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and The Heart of Kent Hospice's most recent accounts cover 2025. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.