Our ambitious goals

Our Board has set a range of ambitious goals for the Liver Foundation as it continues to grow as Australia’s peak body for all liver diseases.

We are committed to serving the patient community and the Australian people. We will do this through:

• Providing every Australian access to the right knowledge, education, and awareness around liver disease, to ensure we prevent it from taking more lives, and making sure that our education and support target the most vulnerable in our community
• Providing every Australian with liver disease access to the required support, care and behaviour change programs they desperately need
• Providing researchers with the opportunity to make the discoveries that will eliminate liver disease in the future.

Top L-R: Paul Clark, Edward Smith, David Smith, John Dewar, Gary Jeffrey
Bottom L-R: Winita Hardikar, Simone Strasser, Sally Castle

Nationally, more than six million Australians have liver disease, with more than 7,000 deaths per year. Fatty liver disease is life threatening and the number of people with this problem is skyrocketing in Australia. It is caused by things like obesity, overweight, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity – all the same things that also cause heart disease, various cancers, and diabetes.

But there are many common forms of liver disease that can often be prevented or reversed if diagnosed early.

Liver Foundation Chair, Mr David Smith, says the Liver Foundation is committed to serving the patient community and the Australian people.

“The Liver Foundation receives calls from patients every week seeking help to take care of their liver, reverse fatty liver and other forms of liver damage,” he says.

“There is a significant opportunity to support the patient community and prevent coming tide of liver related illness and death.”

The Liver Foundation, with our experienced board members, plans to support consumers, patients, families and communities to understand causes and risk factors of liver diseases.

We have a range of specific projects that we will focus on in the coming months.

• We will establish the Arnold Smith Clinical Research Scholarship in paediatric liver transplantation, to commence in February 2024.
• We will adapt our very successful GP education for nurses, who are critical to support people with liver disease especially in regional nd remote Australia. We will create and deliver evidence-based training to them on all aspects of liver disease.
• We will recruit a patient support specialist to answer patient enquiries, run online support groups, create strong links with other liver patient support groups in Australia and around the world, and help build even more great resources for people with liver disease.
• We will grow our consumer panel and train them to provide patient insight into clinical trials, research, and the activities of the Liver Foundation.

We hope that through our work, patients can avoid costly, chronic-stage treatments and premature death, and governments can avoid spending billions of dollars on treating people with liver disease.

Our plans build on last year’s successes, which included developing comprehensive patient resources, training GPs to recognise and treat liver disease, and advocating for more investment in liver disease prevention, education and research.

All these projects require funding. If you can help, please contact our CEO, Sally Castle at hello@liver.org.au.