This small charity is making mighty strides! Find out more about the value of small medical charities.
The year 2020 started with a bang. To the complete surprise of governments around the world, the covid pandemic appeared. Within a year, vaccines had been developed and passed through the regulatory processes. This was astonishing as typically this takes 10-15 years.
Although governments had been largely taken by surprise and were under-prepared, scientists had long been predicting that something precisely like this would happen. They had been doing background work on vaccine development techniques for many years, and so hit the ground running. Generally, however, this doesn’t happen, and it can take ten to twenty years for medical innovations to reach patients.
This can be a problem for the many small charities that support early-stage development of medical techniques. How can they assess the value of the work they are supporting?
Charities offering better care can point to individuals who have benefitted from their support, but those that focus on the development of treatments, or prevention strategies, need to wait for many years, and often their early support can fade into the background.
The Neurosciences Foundation is a small Scottish charity supporting early-stage medical research in Scotland. The focus is on disorders of the brain and spine. How can it demonstrate value? Read more here