Thanks to your donations, we provided £211,000 to fund the Jeremy Neil Allen Clinical Research Fellowship at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

The fellowship, which piloted in September 2021, has been recognised regionally and will last three years, giving three doctors at Leeds Children’s Hospital a year-long opportunity to receive specialist training at the Leeds Children’s Clinical Research Facility.

The Children’s Clinical Research Facility opened in June 2018 and was made possible thanks to a generous Gift left in a Will to Leeds Hospitals Charity.

There are currently over 100 active clinical research studies at the Children’s Research Facility, with more than 1,000 babies, children and young people involved in clinical trials in 2017-18.

Kate Parmenter, Paediatric Doctor at Leeds Children’s Hospital began her year-long fellowship in September 2022 and her vision is that every child, if eligible, should have the opportunity to be part of a clinical trial.

Since September, Kate has worked on a variety projects, both to improve personalised care for young patients, but also to educate her peers on the importance of research-led care and treatment.

Kate spoke to us about the lasting impact she wants to have for future generations of patients through the fellowship:

“A huge part of my role has been an education piece for my colleagues, many parents don’t realise there are opportunities for their child to be part of research trials, so it’s our job to approach them for consent, which many doctors find a difficult conversation to broach.

Over the past few months there has been an increase in the number of babies, children and young people involved in research trials and we’ve now recruited a larger proportion of patients, which is a hugely positive step forward.

I believe that every young person should have the opportunity to be part of research regardless of their family’s socioeconomic background.”

Dr Parmenter has ambitious plans for the rest of her fellowship and hopes to address health inequalities for children across the region and recruit children with rare conditions to more research trials.