The British Cardiovascular Society

The 15 initial members included Sir Thomas Lewis and Sir James Mackenzie who built the foundations of clinical cardiology with their early work on the pulse and electrocardiography. By 1936, there were 32 members and the group was reconstituted as the Cardiac Society of Great Britain and Ireland with Dr Maurice Campbell as Honorary Secretary and Treasurer who was also first editor of the British Heart Journal, the forerunner to Heart. In 1946, the name changed again to the British Cardiac Society. Membership had grown to 145, and women and surgeons were allowed to apply for election! In 1952, Sir John Parkinson was elected as the first President of the Society and in the same year chaired the inaugural European Congress of Cardiology, now the European Society of Cardiology. The British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) adopted its current name in 2004 and has its headquarters in a 1790 townhouse in Central London. The Society hosts an extensive collection of artefacts relating to the history of British cardiology under the supervision of the Archivist, Dr Caroline Coats. The Society acts as an umbrella organization for 20 affiliated societies and associations, such as the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society and the British Heart Rhythm Society. This wider membership of around 10 000 people includes basic scientists, cardiac physiologists, nurses, and patient groups. The Society, therefore, covers the breadth of clinical and academic cardiology. Representatives of the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Cardiac Societies together with the affiliated societies sit on the BCS Council. The Society is a registered charity, governed by a Board composed of the President, Honorary Secretary, and four Vice Presidents, all of whom are elected by the Society’s members, together with five Non-Executive Trustees. The Vice Presidents are responsible for the Society’s four divisions: Finance & Corporate Development, Clinical Standards, Education & Research, and Training. The Chief Executive, Rachael O’Flynn, also sits on the Board and is responsible for the professional staff of the Society. Within the Society, there are also two Councils, the Imaging Council, which brings together representatives from all of the cardiac imaging groups, and the Physiologists’ & Scientists’ Council, which represents disciplines within cardiac physiology including echocardiography and cardiac rhythm management. The Finance & Corporate Development Division is led by Dr Derek Harrington. It ensures that the Society has the means to pursue its objectives of promoting high-quality cardiovascular care, education, and research, through the work programs of the Clinical Standards Division and the Education & Research Division, and to act as the lead voice for those working in cardiovascular care and research in the UK. One of the Society’s core aims is to equip cardiologists with the skills they need to provide the best possible care to their patients. Recent initiatives in support of this include an Emerging Leaders’ Programme for young cardiologists and mentorship training for more experienced colleagues, both of which are available to the Society’s members. The Clinical Standards Division is led by Dr Andrew Archbold. It is responsible for matters relating to the clinical practice of cardiology and its remit is, therefore, necessarily broad. Its work is delivered by its two subdivisions: the Clinical Standards Committee and the Guidelines & Practice Committee. The focus for the Clinical Standards Committee is the development of clinical and professional standards for UK cardiologists. For example, it developed guidance regarding how cardiologists could meet the General Medical Council’s requirements for revalidation and retention of a licence to practice medicine. More recently, it developed the Joint Cardiac Professional Societies Guidance on the management of interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons whose procedural outcomes appear as potential outliers in the National Cardiac Audit datasets. The Guidelines & Practice Committee provides expert clinical cardiology advice to external organizations such as the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) in the development of clinical guidelines, technology appraisals, and position statements. The Education & Research Division, led by Professor John Greenwood, oversees the extensive education portfolio of the Society. The principal educational event of the year is the 3-day conference held in Manchester in the first week of June which attracts over 2000 delegates. The theme for 2020 is Cardiology and the Environment. The core content is structured to ensure that the entire cardiology curriculum is covered over a 5-year cycle, providing all of the continuous medical education required for cardiologists to revalidate in general cardiology. The meeting also includes focused educational tracks devoted to subspecialty cardiology fields including intervention, imaging, heart failure, and cardiac rhythm management, along with an extensive simulation zone and imaging village, dedicated to practical hands-on training for trainees and established cardiologists. There is an international track featuring joint sessions with both the ESC and the American College of Cardiology as well as our close colleagues in the Irish Cardiac Society. The flagship events are the BCS named lectures which feature outstanding speakers from around the world. The Society runs a series of courses under the auspices of Dr Shouvik Haldar and the Education Committee. The highlights are A Year in Cardiology, held last year on 13th December 2019, which provided a concise update on the year’s key developments and the Cardiology Review Course, which is run jointly with the Mayo Clinic and is next scheduled to be held on 2nd to 6th March 2020. Much of our educational content is available online to members and this will increase considerably when our new website is introduced in the next few months. The Society is also the co-owner of the journal Heart, published by BMJ Publishing and which includes the excellent Education in Heart series. The research activity of the Society is Focused through the British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Collaborative (CRC), hosted at the BCS Offices and led by Professor Rod Stables. The CRC includes representatives from the research leads of subspecialty societies across the full breath of cardiology and was set up to bring together researchers from across multiple disciplines to focus on clinically relevant research questions and to facilitate the development of clinical trial protocols. Dr Alison Calver is the Vice President for Training and the Chair of the national Specialty Advisory Committee for training in cardiology. In this dual role, she oversees the development of the training curriculum for UK cardiology trainees and the running of the training programme across the UK. BCS members are involved at every stage of the development of the curriculum and in the question setting for the European Exam in General Cardiology which all trainees sit prior to completion of their training. The BCS works closely with the British Junior Cardiologists Association, led by Dr Abhishek Joshi, which represents the 800 or so UK cardiology trainees. The leadership of the BCS is closely involved at a senior level in national quality improvement programs and policy development. Together with Dr Sarah Clarke, my immediate predecessor as BCS President, I lead the cardiology workstream of the Getting It Right First Time programme. This is a clinically led programme in England aimed at removing unwarranted variation in the provision of care. It involves visiting every one of the 140 hospitals which provide cardiology services to review their delivery of care. Professor Nick Linker, BCS Honorary Secretary, is playing a leading role in a closely linked review of the commissioning of specialist cardiac care which aims to ensure that services are organized in a way which provides optimal clinical outcomes and best value for money. The Society is also providing leadership to the cardiology elements of the NHS Long Term Plan, a 10-year framework for the development of healthcare in England. Approaching 100 years after its inception, the BCS is still going strong! Conflict of interest: none declared.

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