Yorkhill children's charity rebrands and goes international
- Published
The charity supports paediatric, obstetric and neonatal healthcare
An organisation which supports sick children in the greater Glasgow area has re-launched itself as a national and international charity.
Yorkhill Children's Foundation has given more than £13m to Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children and related facilities since it was set up in 2001.
It will now be known as Yorkhill Children's Charity and aim to support other Scottish and overseas hospitals.
The foundation grew out of Yorkhill Sick Children's Fund, set up in 1981.
The new charity will continue the core aim of the foundation to provide support for paediatric, obstetric and neonatal healthcare.
Chief executive Shona Cardle said: "The charity has developed significantly over the last 11 years and the time is right to take it to the next level.
'Leading' vision
"Our vision is to be the leading children's health charity in Scotland, supporting hospital and community-based children's health services locally, nationally and internationally."
Ms Cardle said the charity would consider funding "any hospital or community-based initiative that helps save or improve the life of a child".
The charity's director of fundraising David Welch said there had been "positive feedback" from many of its supporters, donors and partners.
Speaking to BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme, he also disagreed with suggestions that donors could be put off if they thought their money would be spent overseas.
"The support that we offer for Yorkhill Hospital is always going to be there, and in fact we hope to be able to increase that support as we have done over the past few years," he said.
"Through increasing that support and developing some new and unique partnerships, particularly focussing on research that will benefit children in the future, we're changing our impact.
"We will continue to benefit children in Glasgow and Scotland and that's what people's money will do, but the reach of the organisation will also be on a global level."