David Cameron announced this week that the Government would be putting £66 million more into dementia research. He also pledged extra funds to help hospitals with diagnosis.
This is good news, without doubt. It means more resources for research, and these are urgently needed. It has also served to raise awareness of the condition, the suffering it causes and the horrifying cost to public services.
Is there a downside? Well, only if it causes people to switch off and think they can leave it to HM Government. The sums involved are unimaginable for most of us, but they are not going to fund all the research that is needed. The Government has built the bridge a little bit further out, but it is up to the rest of us to make sure it reaches the other side.
The other reason is that we can expect the additional funds, made available through official channels, to find their way most naturally to large scale clinical trials and other hugely expensive projects. This is good, because it is not the sort of bill that many charities could pick up. However, we still need to give wings to the smaller initiatives, the pilot projects and other pioneering work that can lead to bigger things later. This is where BRACE has often played a key role.
With this sort of partnership between large and small, public and voluntary, there is more reason that ever to believe that we will eventually defeat Alzheimer’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment