One of the nation’s leading centres of clinical excellence is redefining how to raise charitable donations to help patients through a crowdfunding platform.
The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Charity in Stanmore, Middlesex, has created the first bespoke NHS charity crowdfunding website www.makeitpossible.org.uk to generate income during a time of financial challenge for the NHS.
The specially designed online platform, launched in September, allows patients and families to support and fund ideas to directly improve patient care by directing donations to specific projects. The Make It Possible crowdfunding platform gives patients a voice in improving their own care and offers staff the chance for their innovative ideas to become a reality.
To ensure that the projects are viable and clinically appropriate for the complex patient group treated at the RNOH, a panel of advisors (leading clinical and commercial experts from the RNOH) have been appointed, chaired by leading foot and ankle surgeon, Andy Goldberg OBE.
The RNOH Charity’s crowdfunding launch project is aiming to raise £100,000 out of the total £400,000 required to help expand and refurbish the Spinal Cord Injury Centre (SCIC), the country’s leading centre for patients with a spinal cord injury.
The Spinal Cord Injury Centre (SCIC) treats over 2,000 patients annually from across the country and provides specialist services that local hospitals and A&E departments cannot. However, the current facility is not big enough to meet demands and patients have to be turned away. If the campaign is successful the SCIC will be able to treat more patients per year, including those whose injuries are so serious they need ventilators to breathe.
Angela Gall, Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine at the SCIC said, “The expansion of the SCIC will enable us to extend the excellent quality of care that Stanmore offers to so many more patients, and help more people start rebuilding their lives than is currently possible. I fully support the RNOH Charity’s crowdfunding campaign, and encourage everyone to support it.”
For more information, visit www.makeitpossible.org.uk