EAPCI Focus on the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society (BCIS)

NEWS

■Stent for Life Forum 2014, 27 February-1 March 2014, Prague (Czech Republic) First Announcement.
Stent for Life Initiative invites you to the 3rd international SFL conference dedicated to STEMI patient management in Europe and beyond. With participants from 25countries, this exceptional conference encourages the participation of interventional cardiologists, government representatives, patient organisations and industry partners.

■Don’t miss the Hot Line: Registries on prevention and treatment on 3 September from 14:30 to 15:45 in Room Baku (The Hub)- Central Village. Attend the talk on “reperfusion therapy for ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction 2010/2011: current status in37 ESC countries”.

■Meet EAPCI at PCR London Valves! London (UK) 15-17 September. Discover the ESC eLearning platform and find out more about such EAPCI programmes as the CathGo database, the 2014 Training and Research Grants programme and much more.

An interview with the President, Simon Redwood

What does the EAPCI membership mean for a national society?

As our international professional guild, the EAPCI provides vision and instruction for the present and future. Today its success, judged by the membership, is no longer European, but a worldwide affair. BCIS members are very well represented with 260 members (55%) of the 475 Consultant BCIS members also being EAPCI members, making us the second largest European group being represented.

What are the current issues related to the national society?

The National Health Service in the UK, has come under some scrutiny in recent years with increasing demands on resources with an ever growing population, nevertheless it is an excellent healthcare system and we are fortunate to have excellent facilities and access to a wide range of interventional equipment. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is now widely available, with rapidly increasing rates per million population, and several centres are at the forefront of evaluating newer TAVI devices. We do, however, have some issues with commissioning of certain procedures, such as left atrial appendage closure, PFO closure and Mitraclip, but as an organisation, we are currently working to resolve these difficulties.

As of July 2013, we now publicly report an analysis based on each individual consultant PCI operator’s activity and outcomes. The aim is to become even more open about the way in which patients are treated, and is part of a NHS wide increase in the transparency of reporting the way patients are treated and the outcomes they might expect from a high quality service.