Has There Really Been a Fall in Heart Attack Presentations in the UK?

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Has There Really Been a Fall in Heart Attack Presentations in the UK?

6th April 2020

Let’s answer that question together

Dear BCIS Member,

There is much debate that we may be seeing substantially fewer patients presenting with myocardial infarction across the UK since the COVID pandemic struck, and a commensurate concern that this may be because patients are too nervous to seek the help they need.   Without national audit data, however, these observations remain speculative.  It is our intention, with your help, to look at this question using the BCIS-NICOR database to which we all contribute. We have assurances that the logistical barriers that have prevented rapid data access and analysis in the past can be circumvented, and that we, therefore, will be able to both provide outputs and disseminate the findings very rapidly.

We stress that the purpose is NOT to assess the performance of you or your teams, but to provide important and timely national data in a dynamic situation, to assess patient events and access in response to the pandemic.

In the first instance, we propose to simply compare the month by month rate of STEMI/NSTEMI PCI for the first 3 months of this year compared to the same time period last year.

We can only do this if you are able to upload your data promptly to NICOR. We, therefore, need the help of members, particularly those who take responsibility in their centres for the data upload: 

If at all possible we are asking that you upload all your PCI data (even if it as yet un-validated) to the end of March 2020 by the end of April.

We will take a data extract at the end of April and should be able to provide some simple analyses within about a week.  We acknowledge that later uploads might contain modified data, once there is time for full validation, and again stress that the purpose is NOT about assessing the performance of you or your teams.

Many thanks for your ongoing engagement with the national audit processes in these challenging times… we hope you agree that this is an important piece of work that we can all achieve together.

Best wishes,

Peter Ludman, BCIS Audit Secretary

Nick Curzen, BCIS President

Exploring the Calcium Algorithm

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Exploring the Calcium Algorithm

12th March 2019

Exploring the Calcium Algorithm
– 10th May 2019

Golden Jubilee Hospital, Glasgow

Course objectives

Join us for a full day workshop in exploring the calcium algorithm, using case examples to identify and explain the approaches required. You will leave with tips, tricks, techniques and ideas of new technologies for treating calcified arteries.

Open to Consultants, Interventional Fellows and Trainees (ST6/7)

Course fee is £50.00, for UK consultants only

This will include hotel and standard class travel

Hosted by Margaret McEntegart

with

Keith Oldroyd

Julian Strange

Tom Johnson

Peter O’Kane

Keith Robertson

Aadil Shaukat

Paul Rocchiccioli

Stuart Watkins

Invitation to the 2nd BCIS Research Abstract Day

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Invitation to the 2nd BCIS Research Abstract Day

29th November 2018

Dear BCIS Member

I would like to invite you attend the 2nd BCIS Research Abstract Day on Thursday 13th December 2018, Royal College of Physicians, London.

At the event, the top 4 shortlisted submissions in the categories for the Young Investigator Award (YIA) and Research of the Year will presenting their abstracts in front of a panel of judges, chaired by Prof Adrian Banning, BCIS President. The winners in these 2 categories will then be invited to present their abstract at a main session at ACI 2019 and will receive their certificate and prize from the President at this session.

Schedule:
– Registration/sign-in opens from 10.15am.
– The morning session focuses on the YIA, and is scheduled between 11am – 1pm. There will be a lunch break from 1pm to 1.40pm. The YIA winner will be announced by 1.45pm.
– The afternoon session focuses on Research of the Year, and is scheduled between 1.45pm – 3.45pm. There will be a refreshments break of approx 15 minutes. The Research of the Year winner will be announced shortly after 4pm.

Lunch and coffee will be provided during the day to BCIS members.

If you are interested in securing a place, please contact asap Azeem Ahmad, BCIS Administrator, bcis@bcs.com.

Best wishes

Prof Nick Curzen
Chair, BCIS R&D Committee

Prof. Nick Curzen BM(Hons) PhD FRCP
Professor of Interventional Cardiology/Consultant Cardiologist

E Level, North Wing, University Hospital Southampton NHS FT, Southampton SO16 6YD

Survey: The organisation, life-work balance and gender perceptions amongst UK Cardiologists

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Survey: The organisation, life-work balance and gender perceptions amongst UK Cardiologists

27th February 2018

Dr Shareen Jaijee, Consultant Cardiologist, Imperial NHS Trust, is carrying out a Masters in Medical Leadership with Birkbeck University and the Royal College of Physicians studying gender differences in perceptions and barriers at work, such as organisational support, work-life balance, professional satisfaction, career progression and attitudes to part time work. Large scale studies examining these key aspects of work have been carried out in the US, but not within the UK and there is a significant data gap.

Please click here if you wish to participate in this survey.

Cath Lab Basics 2015 AHP meeting: summary

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Cath Lab Basics 2015 AHP meeting: summary

27th June 2015

BCIS Cath Lab Basics March 2015

One of the many functions of the BCIS AHP Working Group is to help with the education of other AHPs who may be involved in coronary intervention. The first catheter lab basics meeting that we organised was held in March 2013 in London, at the Royal Free Hospital. The following year it was hosted by Manchester Royal Infirmary. The third course was held in March 2015 at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow. As usual, I arranged to attend the meeting to present on radiation protection and identifying coronary arteries. I also helped with the arrangements for the two-day course. To get from Manchester to Glasgow takes about 4 hours by car, 3 hours by train or 50 minutes by aeroplane. Naturally, I chose the “quick” option. So I met Dr Fraser in the departure lounge at Manchester Airport at about 7.30pm for our 8.15pm flight. “On time”, said the screens. Soon it was postponed to 8.45, then 9.00, then 9.40 and finally 10.15. The departure lounge was deserted, apart from the unfortunates booked on our flight. We had been given a voucher for a meal on the way to the gate, but all the outlets had closed for the evening. When we got to the gate, the aircraft was half the size of the one that had been booked. There was nowhere for my case. It was rather cramped, but otherwise satisfactory until 10 minutes before landing we were told that we would not be landing at Glasgow, but at Edinburgh. “Don’t worry though, there will be taxis to take you onto Glasgow” came the tannoy. So the unfortunate 36 of us (on the plane) trampled out to the waiting people carriers and were loaded onto vehicles. An hour or so later we were in the city centre and some passengers were dumped and others, ourselves included, loaded onto another taxi for the onward journey to our hotel. God knows how long that took, but we finally reached the reception at 1.40am and our rooms at 2.00 am. How we ran the meeting, I don’t know, but the meeting was once again a resounding success. The moral of this story is that I shall never try the quickest route to Glasgow again.

Bryan Walker Clinical Lead Radiographer – Manchester Heart Centre Radiographer representative, BCIS AHP Working Group June 2015

AHP 4th Meeting 2014: Report

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AHP 4th Meeting 2014: Report

9th June 2014

AHP 4th Meeting 2014: Report

Following much discussion regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the second 2 day March AHPs’ meeting in Manchester, we all suggested ways in which it could be improved for Glasgow in 2015. It was agreed to change the running order and to include some recorded live cases to illustrate practice to less experienced colleagues.

There was also discussion of the AHPs’ section of the annual ACI meeting in London during January 2015. The group made many suggestions as to how this meeting too could be improved for AHPs.

The final item of note was a discussion of a plan to have open days at various catheter laboratories throughout the UK. Each would be open for one visit each year to around 4-5 visitors.

Bryan Walker

Radiographer Representative

BCIS Working Group

Clinical Lead Radiographer Manchester Royal Infirmary, Catheter Labs

AHP 3rd Meeting 2013: Report

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AHP 3rd Meeting 2013: Report

9th January 2014

Report: Allied Health Professionals Working Group – 3rd meeting, 11 November 2013

It was the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. With appropriate solemnity, the BCIS AHP Working Group met for the 3rd time in the Heart Centre of Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Unusually, there was a full-house and only I was late (having travelled about 100 yards).

There was a full programme of business to attend to.

Dr Fraser started the meeting off by thanking everyone for their efforts in attending and welcoming two new faces. Alison Brown, Clinical Educator, Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow had been officially appointed to the committee and she was accompanied by her colleague Murray Jummun who would be helping her to organise the proposed 2015 AHPs’ meeting in Glasgow.

The first agenda item was to organise the AHPs’ sessions for ACI in 2014. Discussion around this topic was lengthy and terminated only by our first tea and biscuits break.

With this settled (check out the details on the ACI 2014 website), we turned our attention to the organisation of our up-coming catheter lab basics course in March 2014. It was agreed that we should keep the general format the same (as what is basic does not change) and fine-tune areas that the committee felt needed to be altered.

Sarah Carson proposed that colleagues at Bristol would be interested in hosting the 2016 course.

Having partaken of a more than adequate finger-buffet, we addressed the AHPs’ element of the BCIS website. It was agreed that this was growing satisfactorily, but more educational materials were to be encouraged. Chris Loder offered a piece that would assist anyone wishing to write an abstract for a publication. It was agreed that this would be a welcome addition.

Once again, Dr Fraser asked all the group members to find and provide a photograph for the website front page. Cue the squirming from the usual quarters. It was proposed that the website should also have a feedback box, which would email directly to bcis@bcis.com. It was also decided to ask former committee members for any standard operating protocols that could be added to the site. Finally, a research page was proposed and I agreed to help put this in place.

The next agenda item was the election of new members. The committee had no physiologist member and this had to be addressed along with two more nursing representatives who had yet to be replaced.

The final item discussed was communication with other groups. Sarah Carson had been invited to join a EuroPCR AHPs’ committee. Chris Loder had attended a recent TCT conference. It was reiterated that on each of these occasions, representatives should be seeking opportunities to share learning and practice.

The meeting ended and everyone was escorted to the local taxi rank to return to Piccadilly Railway station.

Bryan Walker

Radiographer Representative

BCIS Working Group

Clinical Lead Radiographer Manchester Royal Infirmary, Catheter Labs

3 January 2014