Established in 2004 by Terry Waite, the humanitarian author and former hostage of the Islamic Jihad Organisation, Hostage UK operates primarily around three core aims. These are: to provide specialist services and pastoral support to hostages and their families, both during and after the incident, including availability of a 24 hour helpline, to provide specialist education and independent advice to organisations with employees facing a kidnap risk to assist them in improving family support services, and to campaign and advocate for improved government and organisational policy and practice pertaining to kidnapping incidents.