Voting has now closed for the National Lottery Awards ‘Best Health Project’, of which HeadSmart was selected as a finalist.
In 2002, The Brain Tumour Charity was given a National Lottery Grant to help fund research into the diagnosis of brain tumours in children.
That research lead to a clinical guideline aimed at healthcare professionals and the launch of a public-facing campaign, HeadSmart, to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain tumours.
Since receiving lottery-funding, HeadSmart has helped reduce average diagnosis times of childhood brain tumours from 13 weeks to 6.5 weeks – early diagnosis of brain tumours reduces the chance of a child developing long term disabilities and can ultimately save their life.
“My GP practice said they hadn’t seen a brain tumour patient in 25 years, so they weren’t familiar with the symptoms. Now I want to use my story to help HeadSmart raise awareness as early diagnosis is crucial.” Eva
Thanks to a teacher noticing that Eva’s handwriting had deteriorated over the summer holiday, she was finally diagnosed, aged five, having endured 18 months of headaches, nausea and loss of balance.
HeadSmart makes a difference. You can too.