Sarcoma Awareness Week: The Chairman's Thoughts.

As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of SCAT I take considerable pride in what has been achieved by this small Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital based charity since its inception some 30 years ago.

It started as a “wig fund”to supply children and adolescents with fashionable wigs to hide the hair loss caused by potent chemotherapy, the NHS options been appalling at that time.

Funds at that time were very meagre but the the subsequent development of a professional fundraiser for the charity has radically altered our approach to fundraising relying not only on gifts from individuals  but also donations from charitable trusts and most importantly the development of fundraising events often initiated by patients, their families and friends.

More funding means that we can extend our areas of support each of which is targeted at differing areas of the patient pathway. We remained totally focused on patient welfare particularly during their inpatient stay but also following discharge. For many years we were the only charity providing modern sporting prostheses to young amputees as part of our “Live life to the full “ campaign. Thankfully this expensive area has now gained central NHS support.
The majority of our support has undoubtedly  been in the area of clinical research in musculoskeletal oncology. In total we have raised £2.5 million to improve the outcome of these devastating diseases.

"It started as a “wig fund”to supply children and adolescents with fashionable wigs to hide the hair loss."
- Steve Cannon MBE

Many areas have  been selected for study ranging from the genome of malignant cells, specific markers in rare tumours, better fixation of internal prostheses and the eradication of infection to mention but a few.

Our work has without doubt improved the outcome and quality of life of these unfortunate young people but as always there is still much to be done.