Above: The Wolfson Childhood Cancer Centre.
Newcastle Hospitals Charity – the official charity of Newcastle Hospitals – has made a grant of more than £200,000 to local charity Children’s Cancer North to aid them in funding cutting-edge research at Newcastle University’s Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre.
Marking the start of an exciting charity partnership in the region, this two-year funding package from Newcastle Hospitals Charity will help to make up for an income shortfall experienced during the COVID pandemic by Children’s Cancer North, who have funded core research at the Wolfson Centre for many years.
As part of this collaboration with Newcastle Hospitals Charity, two new four-year PhD studentships will be funded on the childhood cancer research team at the Wolfson Centre, one starting in each of the two years of the grant (September 2023 and September 2024).
Chris Peacock, Chair of Children’s Cancer North, said
“The pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have caused a very difficult climate for all charities. We had to cancel major fundraising events and this caused a substantial drop in income over the past 2 years. The impact of this meant that we have only been able to fund around 75% of our usual grant to the Wolfson Centre.
Newcastle Hospitals Charity and Children’s Cancer North have often worked collaboratively, so it seemed natural for our two charities to join forces to ensure this vital research can continue without interruption over the next two years – it’s great news.”
Chris added: “We hope this project also helps to lay the foundations for future joint working between our charities, helping to strengthen the already world-class research and cancer provision in our region.”
The Wolfson Centre is one of the largest dedicated childhood cancer research centres in Europe. It is home to more than 90 childhood cancer researchers and is closely linked to the Great North Children’s Hospital, based at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI), Newcastle. Childhood cancer research at the Wolfson Centre is focused on improving the quality of life of children during and after cancer treatment by developing better therapies with less damaging side effects, and improving the outlook for children with the most aggressive forms of cancer.
Teri Bayliss, Charity Director at Newcastle Hospitals Charity, said:
“As the official charity for Newcastle Hospitals, we are committed to collaborating with many of the charities who work within the hospitals. Partnership working is a key part of our strategy to help reduce health inequalities and drive forward research capacity in the North East, so we were delighted that we were able to support Children’s Cancer North in their excellent work championing cancer care and research for our youngest patients.”
Professor Steve Clifford, Director of the Newcastle University Centre for Cancer, said:
“Childhood cancer research at Newcastle has been central to improvements in the care of children with cancer over recent decades. Our Wolfson Centre was established to bring together teams of researchers and clinicians from across Newcastle University and Hospitals, to discover and develop the next wave of advances. Funding from Children’s Cancer North has been a cornerstone of our work over the last 40 years, and we are very excited by this new partnership with Newcastle Hospitals Charity. We hope that this will result in an ongoing partnership, enabling us to grow our research vision to the future and to train the next generation of childhood cancer researchers through these new PhD studentships”.
Partnership working is a key part of our strategy to help reduce health inequalities and drive forward research capacity in the North East, so we were delighted that we were able to support Children’s Cancer North in their excellent work championing cancer care and research for our youngest patients.
Teri Bayliss Charity Director at Newcastle Hospitals Charity
In partnership with
