Our partners
© Northumberland National Park MRT.
The Rescue Benevolent Fund was set up in 2013, thanks to the collaboration and support of Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW) and the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC), and driven by a small group of members from both organisations. We also work closely with Togetherall and The Fire Fighters Charity to provide support and rehabilitation for the wider mountain and cave rescue ‘family’.
Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW)
Mountain rescue is delivered free of charge to casualty and community. Its volunteer team members are on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to recover climbers from precipitous crags, reunite lost walkers with their pals and ensure injured and sick casualties are safely delivered into vital hospital care.
They help search for missing children and vulnerable adults, on and off the hills — frequently in the more urban environment. They search river banks and swift water, and wade chest-deep through floodwater to support their devastated communities.
There are 49 mountain rescue teams in England and Wales, across nine geographical regions and not all are based in the high mountains. Many cover vast expanses of rolling hills and remote moorland (potentially, equally as wild and treacherous).
MREW is a national organisation, which both enables coordination and collaboration between the teams and acts as a representative body to government and the wider UK search and rescue community. Head here for more.
British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC)
BCRC provides a common voice for its members at both national and international level. As in mountain rescue, the individual cave rescue organisations remain entirely autonomous and independent and are on call 24/7 throughout the year. By their nature, a big cave rescue incident can be extremely labour-intense, with team members travelling from all over the UK to support the ‘lead team’.
There are nine volunteer underground rescue organisations within England and Wales. Dive in here to find out more.
Togetherall
Togetherall is a safe, online community where people support each other anonymously to improve mental health and wellbeing. Operational team members from mountain and cave rescue teams in England and Wales can register for free and start talking, finding the support they need, when thy need it, 24/7. They can also access a raft of online resources such as articles, courses and NHS-approved wellbeing assessments. The site is monitored by professional clinicians. Register here to start exploring.
The Fire Fighters Charity
The Fire Fighters Charity provides confidential, personalised support to the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their residential centres and online. They are passionate champions of the health and wellbeing of all they support, their aim to ensure all their beneficiaries can live well, for life.
Our agreement with the charity enable us to offer those same services to members of mountain and cave rescue teams — funded by us — often enabling applicants to access treatments and therapies sooner than they might otherwise.
And it means we can also share that passion for health, wellbeing and recovery through their informative articles in Mountain Rescue magazine. Find out more here.