Excellence Network grants programme awards funding to 9 service improvement projects in 2023

Investing a total of £194,000, these projects will enhance statutory health services at local and national levels across the UK.

The robust funding decision-making process involved 28 reviewers, including Parkinson's experts and people with lived experience of Parkinson's. Together, we evaluated the applications throughout the year, before awarding the funding at the end of 2023.

Small grants (for projects up to £10,000)

The following 6 projects were awarded funding through the small grants scheme:

• A team at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, led by Dr Ailish O’Callaghan, will identify and assess the unmet needs and barriers to accessing services for people with advanced Parkinson’s and those within the most remote parts of north Cumbria.
• The team at King’s College Hospital, led by Dr Ray Chaudhuri, will create an educational video on advanced therapies for those with advanced care needs in Parkinson’s.
• Fiona Turnbull, Specialist Physiotherapist at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, aims to support people who are newly diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s through delivering weekly group-based exercise and multidisciplinary education sessions.
• Parkinson's specialist, Robert Davies, and his colleagues at Derriford Hospital are developing Parkinson’s champion roles across the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, to improve the standards of care during hospital admissions and stays. These roles hope to enhance the experience of people with Parkinson’s in acute settings.
• Professor Camille Carroll is leading a team of researchers and clinicians from the University of Plymouth and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, to encourage research participation among people with Parkinson’s to improve overall health outcomes through the creation of an online research register titled ‘JPR@Research+Me’.
• Dr Katherine Lloyd from the University of Bristol is introducing and evaluating the use of home-based blood pressure monitoring to improve outcomes for orthostatic hypotension amongst people with Parkinson's.

Large grants (for projects between £10,001 to £50,000)

The remaining 3 projects were awarded large grant funding:

• Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, Justine Greene, from the Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust is developing the ‘Stay Right, Stay Well’ swallow screening tool. This will ensure that people with Parkinson’s have safe and timely nutrition, hydration, and medication in acute settings.
• Professor Donald Grosset from the University of Glasgow is undertaking a large-scale UK database analysis to encourage services to adopt a preventative approach to bone health management.
• Professor Emily Henderson and Dr Matthew Smith at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol are developing a toolkit to improve the assessment and management of bladder symptoms in people with Parkinson’s.

Read more about each of these projects in this document here (PDF, 85.8KB).

We are delighted to fund these 9 fantastic projects and we look forward to following their progress as they transform services and create a sustainable impact for people living with Parkinson’s.