2022 Parkinson's UK AGM

Our members attended our online annual general meeting (AGM) on Saturday 15 October. Members received the trustees' report and financial statements from 2021, the minutes of the 2021 AGM and the report from the Chair of the People Committee.

Members heard from our Chair, Gary Shaughnessy, who reflected on the fact that 54,000 more people in the UK had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the 3 years since he became Chair. Parkinson’s UK continued to help the community through our branches, cafes and networks and 496 Parkinson’s nurses. Gary also spoke about making funding services and research easier through initiatives such as the innovation fund and working with partners to build on our research and clinical expertise.

Members also heard from Emma Cooper, our Interim Director of Community and Participation, who spoke about access to services and support. Our Director of Research, Arthur Roach, spoke about our research programmes and the Parkinson’s Virtual Biotech Programme dedicated to developing specific new treatments. Stephen Hooper, Director of Finance, reported that our finances had remained stable during 2021 and throughout 2022 so far.

Our Chief Executive, Caroline Rassell, reported that she had spent much of the year gathering insights from the Parkinson’s community to inform our work. She gave a forward look into various initiatives including:

• campaigning for more Parkinson’s nurses so that each nurse had a workload of no more than 300 patients
• supporting the community to ensure that people could access our digital and physical services to help people with Parkinson’s to lead active lives
• responding to the increasing interest in non-drug based research such as nutrition, physical activity and complementary therapies. One priority would be to help people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s and their families.

There was also lively engagement with members. Many topics were covered including research, community engagement and moving back to face-to-face meetings, the offer to the newly diagnosed and why the charity does not have any physical shops.

Read the AGM minutes here. The provisional date for the 2023 AGM is Saturday 14 October.