Heart Valve Voice News

We recently met with Louise Bache, CEO of Heartbeat, a cardiac rehabilitation centre in the North-West. We asked Louise to write a piece for our community about the importance of good cardiac rehab and the lasting impact it can have on cardiac patients.

According to new research, urgent action is needed to clear the backlog of people requiring treatment for aortic stenosis or risk unnecessary loss of life.

Heart Valve Voice is delighted to announce that we have become a member of the World Heart Federation.

We held the fifth stage of our Your Heart Matters tour last week. For this project, we have travelled across the United Kingdom promoting awareness of heart valve disease and offering stethoscope checks to those over the 50.

This year marks 20 years since the first clinical TAVI procedure was performed by Alain Cribbier, and to celebrate this historic milestone, Heart Valve Voice will be sharing 20 TAVI stories throughout the year, one for every year this pioneering procedure has been performed.

In February 2019, Julia was recovering from a viral infection and feeling run down and tired. After her GP listened to her heart with a stethoscope, they discovered she had a significant murmur and a subsequent echo found she had severe aortic stenosis with a bicuspid valve. This is her valve disease story.

This year, as part of International Women's Day 2022, we asked our patient advocate, Livvy Gosney, for her thoughts on the unique challenges women face while undergoing heart valve disease treatment. Here is what she said:

Today Heart Valve Voice launch our State of the Nation: Heart Valve Disease in Scotland Report, which looks at the detection, diagnosis and treatment of heart valve disease in Scotland.

After being born with a hole in her heart, Angie Martin first had open heart surgery when she was a small girl. Fast forward 40 years and Angie's leaky valve began to deteriorate and needed urgent intervention. After being told she needed an operation, a pandemic stopped the world in its tracks. However, despite the pressures on the health service, and thanks to the team's brilliant work at Harefield, Angie received her life-saving treatment.

Heart Valve Voice is delighted to see today’s publication of NICE’s guideline on heart valve disease presenting in adults. The publication of these guidelines marks is a key moment for Heart Valve Voice, our patient community and future valve disease patients.