Heart Valve Voice 2018
Tuesday 8th January 2019
2018 was busiest year yet at Heart Valve Voice. We have accomplished a lot over 2018 including our Gold Standard of Care Guidelines, the first ever European Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day, the London to Paris Cycle ride, The Patient Portraits Photography competition, patient events, meetings, parliament events, conferences and much more.
Part of our busy 2018 was focussed on a number of patient centred events that help to show the quality of life after heart valve disease treatment as well as raise awareness of the importance of access to treatment. These events helped to solidify our message that the patient's voice should be the loudest voice, early detection and diagnosis is key and that access to treatment should be available to all those with heart valve disease across the UK and Europe.
Along with our patient work we have also made great strides with our policy work. This year we brought together a group of valve disease experts from across the country to devise a set of Gold Standard Guidelines that will help optimise patient care, improve access and influence policy makers on behalf of heart valve disease patients. The guidelines will be launched in early 2019.
2018 has was also a year of new partnerships and growth. We partnered with five countries from across Europe to develop the first ever European Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day that was celebrated during the first week of September. The day was a great success and 2019 will see more countries enter the partnership.
While our work is diverse and varied, it all shares an underlying goal - ensuring patients with heart valve disease are given access to the best and most appropriate care and that they are provided with a voice that is heard by carers, clinicians and decision makers. Despite 2018 being a busy year full of great accomplishments, we are no where near done with our efforts to raise awareness of heart valve disease and the need for more detection, diagnosis and treatment. 2019 is now underway and we have some big events and projects in store that will once again make it a very exciting year for us at Heart Valve Voice. The future is bright!