Blogs

​In an email sent out last week, NHS England signalled a move from phase 1 to phase 2 of its Covid-19 response. The email maps a move to restart urgent elective care procedures in the next six weeks, as well as some non-urgent elective care procedures.

At the very height of the country’s response to the COVID19 outbreak, George became unwell and was rushed to hospital unaware that the heart valve disease symptoms he was suffering were life-threatening.

In a statement from Heart Valve Voice and the UK’s professional cardiovascular societies, we highlighted a concerning trend across the UK showing the number of people presenting at hospitals with cardiac conditions has reduced significantly due to failures to act on the deterioration of symptoms and putting people lives at greater risk. 

Combatting COVID-19 is an extraordinary challenge, and to do our bit to combat the spread of the virus, the nation is being asked to stay at home. Staying in is essential as limiting our contact with others will reduce the risk of us catching the virus as well as passing the virus on if we are carrying. By managing the scale of the outbreak we reduce the strain put on the NHS and help them to save more lives.

The last few weeks have seen COVID-19 (Coronavirus) cause significant alarm and disruption around the world and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little more about the disease and the effects the disruption could have on heart valve disease patients.

In my last blog, I discussed how innovative technology will be a central component in the improved detection, diagnosis, and treatment of heart valve disease.

February is World Heart Month, an opportunity for various forms of heart disease to take centre stage and a time to bring attention to the importance of cardiovascular health.

Having set out our list of pledges for 2020 in my previous blog it is now down to us to turn those pledges into reality. January presented me with two opportunities to not only talk with clinicians and industry leaders about their plans for the year ahead but also develop our own strategies based on these discussions. 

Happy new year!! I hope you all had a great festive period and a lovely new year. The festive period gave us an opportunity to reflect on the work we did last year, and our End of Year report really crystallises all that we were able to achieve.