Kathryn E Griffith (Secretary of the PCCS and Cardiovascular Lead for the Vale of York CCG) writes about the newly formed Primary Care Cardiovascular Society.
For over 10 years, the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society (PCCS) was an active organisation flying the flag for high quality cardiovascular care for patients in the community. It was a multidisciplinary organisation and supported the education of all members of the primary care team, working alongside the BJC. Unfortunately, like many good things, six years ago the organisation came to an end.
Since that time there has been a group of GPs who have maintained regular contact and meetings as the GPSI Forum. Many members of this group are well-known primary care leaders working in national, professional societies and with organisations such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
As we all know, the numbers of people with cardiovascular conditions in primary care continues to increase and with multi-morbidity, management becomes ever more complex. It is simply not effective just to focus on GPs and we need to educate all members of the enlarging primary care team.
At the AGM of the GPSI Forum last year, we felt that it was time to widen our membership to include all members of the primary health care team and consider taking our place again as the PCCS.
Earlier this year, in January, we were delighted to become registered as PCCS CIC and we have been able to accept increasing membership. We have an elected Council with Professor Ahmet Fuat (Durham University and GPSI in Cardiology, Darlington) as President and additional members from across primary care. Information about the newly formed PCCS and its board can be found on our website www.pccsuk.org.
We are planning both national and local meetings for 2018 and continue to work with the BJC and also the Primary Care Cardiovascular Journal. We are planning another cycle challenge for 2018 and welcome new riders for this three to four day event.
Please look out for regular articles written by our members over the next year (see Bradford Healthy Hearts Project). We hope that you will find them interesting.
If you wish to find out more or join the PCCS, please contact our secretariat: www.lcwconsulting.co.uk Or contact me via email at: [email protected]
More news in this issue:
NICE publishes updated familial hypercholesterolaemia guidance
REDUCE shows non-inferiority of short versus long DAPT in acute coronary syndrome
New series on insights from the Bradford Healthy Hearts project
Cardiff Met launches stroke research hub
New test hopes to boost med school recruitment
