We’ve had a busy start to the year and it was good to take some time out to reflect and recharge. It’s great to be back and report the progress we’re making across a broad front.  Firstly, a date for your diary; we will be holding our next National Conference on Saturday 4^th November.  We’ll be confirming more details, including the venue, very soon.

We are making great strides forward. In our last newsletter we announced our funded partnership with Cadent, the UK’s largest gas distribution network. This is a significant development for Fifth Sense in many ways, providing funding to support core costs for the next three years whilst enabling us to increase the scope and breadth of our activity. At the core of this is the delivery of vital support, information and education to help people affected by smell disorders stay safe and well at home.  

An important example of the developments the Cadent funding is supporting is the educational programme we are delivering for NHS England Post-Covid Services. We are helping them to better understand the impact that smell and taste dysfunction has on so many parts of people’s lives and how they can best support those experiencing this as part of Long Covid symptoms. We’ll look forward to sharing a more detailed report with you in due course.

Our ongoing fight for greater recognition of smell and taste impairment continues apace too. I have just returned from Brussels where I was part of a panel discussion organised by the European Forum for Research and Education in Allergy and Airway Diseases (EUFOREA) to mark the second annual awareness day for Chronic Rhinosinusitis with Nasal Polyps.  This was an opportunity highlight that smell loss is often the most debilitating symptom of this condition for people, yet can go unrecognised by doctors.  In the discussion I shared the findings of our recent survey and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank those of you who shared your experiences in this.  Read my reflections on the event here, and you can watch the recording of the discussion on YouTube. 

A key focus for me and our board is growing the charity to increase our capacity to deliver, and we recently held a positive and productive strategic planning exercise. I’m really proud of what our small team is achieving, but we need to increase our fundraising to help support our growth, and we need your help.  Please consider setting up a monthly donation of whatever you can afford to Fifth Sense. If all our members contributed £5 per a month we be able to employ another staff member to help us reach and support more people; increase our awareness-raising and educational activity and grow our research fund.  Thank you for all your ongoing support.

We’ve got a lot happening in the coming weeks; our fundraising event in Exeter next week, public engagement activities and get togethers for Fifth Sense member both in-person and virtually, and more besides. We’ll look forward to sharing more updates with you soon, including details of the conference.  We hope to see you there!