JERSEY is one of the “trailblazers” of a nationwide pilot scheme to reduce deaths from heart failure, the Hospital’s outgoing cardiology fellow has said.
Dr Aaron Henry has been working with the Hospital’s Cardiology Department for the last year and returns next week to Oxford to continue his studies.
His comments come after the department in Jersey – led by Dr Andrew Mitchell – was chosen alongside Blackpool, Liverpool, Swansea, Birmingham, Peterborough and Glasgow by the British Society For Heart Failure for its “25 in 25” programme that aims to reduce heart failure deaths by a quarter over the next 25 years.
The society said: “The BSHF is committed to reducing the number of heart failure deaths [in this way]. It would mean five fewer deaths for every 100 patients newly diagnosed with heart failure every year, saving 10,000 lives annually.”
It explained that the programme will foster the development of “bespoke plans tailored to local needs and demographics”.
Dr Henry said: “Being one of the trailblazers of the pilot, we’re not happy just delivering good clinical care; it’s all about how we do it better, which is where the research comes in, and that’s why I’m particularly interested because you realise that you can push the boundaries of the care that you are able to deliver to patients.”
Dr Henry applied for the fellowship at the suggestion of Professor Oliver Rider, also a visiting consultant at Jersey’s General Hospital.
Commenting on his fellowship, Dr Henry said: “I was quite unsure about what Jersey would hold but, given how highly the cardiology team here and the Hospital are thought of in Oxford, I thought I’ll just give it a go and I haven’t looked back. It was been genuinely one of the most amazing experiences I have had. It can be tough at times – there’s quite a lot of workload and you can have really sick patients – but there’s no other place I could go in the UK and get the breadth of experience I’ve got here.”
A successor to Dr Henry, as cardiology fellow for 2024–25, has just been appointed from a field of 350 applicants.
