UPDATES FROM THE VASCULAR SOCIETIES
British Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in limb Absence Rehabilitation. (BACPAR)
www.bacpar.org | @BACPAR_official
The British Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in limb Absence Rehabilitation (BACPAR) is currently celebrating its 30th year.
Dr Miranda Asher continues to represent BACPAR on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Vascular Societies of Great Britain and Ireland as part of her role as one of BACPAR’s research officers.
As of 24th April, the BACPAR Spring Journal is being printed before dissemination to the membership and stakeholders. There will be a mix of case studies and sharing of good practice from the Annual Scientific Meeting as well as regional updates from BACPAR’s regional representatives.
BACPAR has representation at the upcoming National Conference of the Advanced Practice Physiotherapy Network (APPN). The APPN supports advanced practice roles across all sectors and specialities of physiotherapy practice and was keen to have BACPAR there to understand examples of advanced roles in areas outside of Trauma and Orthopaedics.
The Executive Committee met in March 2023 and has subsequently produced and disseminated the objectives for the current membership year, which of course includes the planning of an increasingly multidisciplinary BACPAR programme for the Dublin Vascular Society Annual Scientific Meeting.
There are ongoing guideline update review projects for which we have sought the support, as Stakeholders, from the Vascular Society and the Society of Vascular Nurses and we look forward to progressing these as a result.
Louise Tisdale
BACPAR Chair, April 2023
The British Society of Endovascular Therapy (BSET)
www.bset.co.uk | @BSETnews
The BSET Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th June. The meeting is the only dedicated UK meeting for the presentation of endovascular research and is an excellent opportunity for vascular and interventional radiology trainees to present their research.
The meeting will be held at Tortworth Court Hotel, Wotton under Edge, South Gloucestershire. The hotel is easily accessible from the M5 motorway. Bristol Parkway railway station is 30 minutes from the venue and Bristol Airport 40 minutes.
We are delighted to welcome the following guest speakers to this year’s meeting:
Tim Resch, Professor of Vascular Surgery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Santi Trimarchi, Professor of Vascular Surgery, Milan, Italy
Michael Lichtenberg, Chief Medical Officer of the Angiology Department at Vascular Centre Clinic, Arnsberg, Germany
Barend Mees, Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon, Maastricht, Netherlands
The meeting will include talks on:
• Aortic endovascular repair
• Innovations in lower limb treatment
• Venous treatments, outcomes and training
• Treatment of type B dissection
• BEST-CLI study
• BASIL-2
• AI and Technology
• Update on major upcoming endovascular trials in the UK
• Case discussions
• Joint Rouleaux Club and BSIRT Symposium including talks on the
– Impact of dual consultant operating on vascular training
– Radiation protection among vascular trainees
– Update on IR training – challenges and opportunities
• Vascular Society update
• BSET Fellowship update
• Aortic and Peripheral abstracts
A National Vascular Training Day will be held on Wednesday 28th June for trainees, providing an opportunity for interactive workstation experience.
British Society of Interventional Radiology (BSIR)
www.bsir.org | @BSIR_News
The BSIR continues to be led by Dr Phil Haslam, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as President. Phil will hand over to his successor, Professor Rob Morgan, St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in November this year.
Our new chief executive officer, Ms Nike Alesbury, is now in post. Nike began working with BSIR at the beginning of March with great enthusiasm. She has an excellent background in fundraising and charity leadership within medical education and research. Her previous roles include Director of External Relations, Communications and Marketing at St George’s, University of London, and Head of Research Information and Engagement at Cancer Research UK (CRUK).
The BSIR 2023 annual scientific meeting will take place on 8–10 November 2023 in Newport, Wales. Newport will provide a marvellous backdrop for BSIR 2023 with the conference centre overlooking stunning views of the Welsh countryside. The International Conference Centre promises to be a venue like no other, with world class facilities suited for an event of this size.
BSIR is working with the CIRSE Congress Innovation Research GmbH as the official professional congress organiser (PCO) to deliver this year’s BSIR Annual Scientific Meeting. This partnership will enable us to simplify the workload for our Scientific Programme Committee and bring added benefits, including an onsite app and access to all content online for 12 weeks after the conference has taken place. Registration for BSIR 2023 will be available summer 2023 (www.bsirmeeting.org).
The Programme Committee chair is Dr Salil Karkhanis, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. As always the programme has great breadth and from a vascular perspective:
In Arterial Interventions, we will be looking at the latest advances in the management of chronic limb ischaemia and discuss controversial topics in below-the-knee arterial disease. Visceral arterial interventions allow us to understand the management of these pathologies better in the D2D session.
Similarly, in another D2D session, we look to explore current topics in aortic disease and understand their diagnosis and management. In the panel discussion, we look to our experts to help unpick the controversies in aortic dissections.
Our Venous Disease D2D session explores various topics in venous thrombotic disease in the limbs, ileocaecal system and mesenteric venous system. The Vascular Access Society of Great Britain and Ireland (VASBI) meets BSIR in our venous access session with a stellar speaker line-up. We also take a deep dive into pulmonary thromboembolism as well as talk to the experts on controversies in the management of portal hypertension.
Other BSIR meetings are IOUK in Southampton on 23–24 May, the advanced practice course in Manchester on 1–2 June and the paediatric IR meeting in Manchester on 22 May.
We continue to seek funding to employ an IR fellow based within the NVR, alongside the existing vascular surgery fellow. Partial funding has been committed by both Circulation Foundation and BSIR. We are applying for funding from the RCR via the Kodak fellowship programme. We should
Rouleaux Club
www.Rouleauxclub.com | @RouleauxClub
It has been another busy year for the Rouleaux Club. We are pleased to see that there is progress from the Rouleaux Bullying, Undermining and Harassment Trainee Survey with the Vascular Society developing a training course in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd), involving trainees in the pilot course. There is still a long way to go to improve this issue, but it is reassuring that Executive Committees of the majority of surgical specialities are taking it seriously.
The Rouleaux focus on student and trainee development continues with five courses run through the year: Introduction to Vascular Surgery at the Vascular Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting (VSASM), CX International Symposium and the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT), as well as two stand-alone “So you want to be a Vascular Surgeon?” courses in conjunction with RCSEd. These are well received by medical students and foundation and core trainees and show promise in recruitment to vascular surgery. The monthly online ASPIRE Junior series continues and has been attracting an international audience, which aligns with our latest collaboration with the World Federation of Vascular Societies to initiate a Global Training Collaborative.
Trainee involvement has increased, with this academic year seeing the launch of two trainee competitions. The first is the VSASM Trainee MDT competition, where trainees were encouraged to submit an interesting case for the meeting’s MDT with the top three submissions being invited to present their case and a trainee-focused discussion facilitated by the panel. The second competition is the Hurting Leg Competition, run in conjunction with the CX International Symposium and BIBA Medical, where trainees were invited to submit an Infographic or two-minute Infomercial to raise awareness and educate members of the public in chronic limb-threatening ischaemia. These are in addition to the yearly Medical Student and Foundation Trainee Essay Competition and ASiT Rouleaux Vascular Poster Prize.
Rouleaux has also launched a Medical Student Surgical Society Affiliation Section to the website to improve links between Rouleaux and Medical Student Surgical Societies to improve access to vascular surgery at an early stage.
In the meantime, there has been ongoing work with the SAC and the Joint Committee on Surgical Training to create guidance regarding dual consultant operating. We have also forged stronger links with the SAS representatives, promoting diversity and inclusion within vascular surgery and trying to improve accessibility for non-NTN trainees.
Over the upcoming years, Rouleaux aims to continue working with medical students and junior trainees to improve awareness and understanding of vascular surgery whilst aiding recruitment and giving teaching, training and leadership opportunities to more senior trainees. We also continue to represent all trainees, not just NTNs, within the Vascular Society and wider vascular community to increase trainee involvement and to create and maintain a supportive and inclusive training environment.
Society of Vascular Nurses (SVN)
www.svn.org.uk | @vascularnurses
Within our nursing profession, we started this year with national nursing strikes that have then led to conversations and an offer of a pay rise, which has gone on to create further controversy with the acceptance by Unison members but declined by the RCN membership. We are now awaiting the outcome of a court ruling regarding further strike action by members of the RCN as to whether the planned strike action over the Bank Holiday period is lawful. We are thankful to all our healthcare colleagues for their support shown during the nursing strike action and we continue to support the junior doctors. We currently do not know how long the pay disputes will last, but I am confident that all staff in the NHS will continue to provide the appropriate high quality care and professionalism to every individual we encounter.
On 19 April the Society of Vascular Nurses (SVN) supported the launch and publication of the document ‘A guide for establishing a nurse-delivered venous intervention service’. This was facilitated by Medtronic with a panel of experts and other contributors. The aim of the document is to guide and support nurses who are looking to undertake nurse-delivered venous intervention to address identified service need. We are aware that this has not come without controversy; however, we believe the document is an important step to help ensure services are developed safely and effectively.
At our first meeting in January we welcomed four of our five new seconded committee members. In our favour, Paula O’Malley is from Dublin and applied with the offer to help us with organising this year’s conference that is to be held in her home city. We also gained Charlotte Hooper who is now based in the community as a vascular nurse after having worked in a vascular arterial centre. We are always keen to ensure we improve and keep these links as we acknowledge there is still a huge gap in the work we do in the community setting. We also welcomed Melissa Hughes and Jayne Snellgrove who both bring years of experience as vascular nurses. We welcome each of these and look forward to the year ahead, hoping it brings value to them and us as a committee. Secondment positions remain an integral part of the committee to ensure we remain in touch with what our membership want, and helps us to deliver this.
We are looking forward to a joint session again this year with the Venous Forum in London on 9 June. However, the programme starts on 8 June with workshops to suit both doctors and nurses, and again this year they are offering free registration to 10 nurses. More information regarding this is available in our 2nd quarter edition of Vascular Matters.
Lastly, at this time of year we like to remind our SVN membership about the opportunity to start thinking about sharing their work and achievements by entering our James Purdie Prize Presentation session. There are also opportunities for our SVN members to apply for a bursary to either help attend Conference or help towards the cost of improving patient care. An ‘Emma’s Gift’ bursary is available to band 5 nurses starting out in their career within the vascular speciality who would like to attend Conference; please see our website for more details.
Gail Curran
SVN President
Society for Vascular Technology of Great Britain and Ireland (SVT)
www.svtgbi.org.uk | @svtgbi
Vascular Anaesthesia Society of Great Britain & Ireland (VASGBI)
www.vasgbi.com | @vasgbi
The Vascular Anaesthesia Society of Great Britain & Ireland (VASGBI) promotes best practice in the perioperative care and anaesthetic management of vascular surgical patients, from preoperative assessment clinics, through surgery, to postoperative care. Our activities focus on developing the knowledge and skills of our members in order to support continual improvement in the care provided to patients referred for vascular surgery.
Providing the best care for our patients is a central aim of VASGBI. This year the patient information leaflet “Your Anaesthetic for Vascular Surgery”, which VASGBI co-authored in conjunction with the Royal College of Anaesthetists, is being revised. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. (https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2020-08/14- VascularSurgery2020web.pdf)
We are in the final editing stages of a new vascular anaesthesia e-learning package developed in conjunction with colleagues in the east of England. This resource will soon be available on the Royal College of Anaesthetists website and will also be able to be accessed via a link from the VASGBI website.
The report of the seventh national anaesthetic audit project (NAP7) examining perioperative cardiac arrest has been completed. A whole chapter of this report will be dedicated to perioperative cardiac arrest in vascular surgery, based on real-world data collected over 1 year. It will include key findings and recommendations that will be of interest to vascular anaesthetists and surgeons. The full report of NAP7 results will be published in November 2023. Key lessons for vascular surgery and vascular anaesthetists will be presented at our ASM in September.
The research and audit sub-committee will be involved with further revision of anaesthesia-related fields of the National Vascular Registry (NVR) in the coming year and will be publishing the VASGBI summary of the NVR report which will be available via a link on our website in the next few weeks: Home - VASGBI.
Three applications were received for the VASGBI/ACTACC research grant which has been awarded to a team in Bristol for a project investigating perioperative smoking advice and cessation (£68,426). The most recent trainee grant (£5000 to a team in Lothian) was awarded to a project looking at machine learning to examine which cpex data most accurately predict complication rates after open TIV thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair. The next round of applications will close on 22 September 2023.
VASGBI supports the conduct of important surveys up to a limit of two per year. If you wish to explore the possibility of running a survey through VASGBI, please take a look at the survey guidelines published on our website: VASGBI SURVEY GUIDELINES - VASGBI.
Registration is now open for the VASGBI ASM 2023 which will take place at the Hilton Metropole in Brighton. We are looking forward to hearing from our surgical colleagues across the country as well as from North America. The programme can be accessed via this link: Website Programme v2 VF.pdf - Google Drive. We are proud of the cross-specialty collaboration that is reflected in the conference programme and look forward to seeing some of you there.
The Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN)
www.vascular-research.net | @VascResearchNet
The Vascular and Endovascular Research Network continues to deliver national and international trainee-led research and audit projects to improve the care of those with vascular diseases. Since our last update in February 2023, I am pleased to announce the CAASP, VISTA and DEFINITE projects have now finished data collection and data validation. We would like to thank all collaborating centres for their efforts in collecting data for these important studies. The executive committee is now undertaking the data analysis. We look forward to sharing the manuscript with our collaborators shortly.
I would like to encourage anyone who has not yet completed the MAID Survey to take part. The MAID Survey is looking to gather information on current practice in the management of deep venous disease (link: https://imperial.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6XWuOAPcpk1QuPQ). Any healthcare professional is welcome to take part, even if they do not have a regular deep venous practice. Collaborative authorship will be granted to those who provide their details.
Want to be involved in VERN? Our new study is planned to launch in the summer and we are looking to expand our executive committee – stay in the know via our twitter, newsletter and website.
The Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland
www.vascularsociety.org.uk | @VSGBI
Industrial action
An NHS workforce crisis feels real when there are unfilled posts and a shortage of staff to fill them. In a recent survey of Society members, half of consultants who responded stated that they plan to retire during the next few years. Whilst some healthcare unions have reached agreement with the Government, widespread NHS industrial action continues over rates of pay and conditions. If the Government does not meet the BMA’s demands for reforming the NHS pay review body and pay restoration, the BMA will soon ballot NHS Consultants in England for strike action. Industrial action is putting pressure on some vascular units, but many were under pressure before, with longer than recommended waiting times for elective aortic aneurysm repair. Resolution of the disputes with the Government and a workforce plan for the NHS are needed urgently to address the recruitment and retention of UK healthcare staff.
Committees
The Audit and Quality Improvement Committee is managing the transition of medical device data to the new National Medical Device Outcome Registry. The reporting of cases up to 31 December 2022 has closed and work has started on producing the 2023 National Vascular Registry (NVR) annual report. In addition, a recent special NVR report will be published on COVID-19 vaccination and vascular surgery outcomes. The Education and Training Committee has plans to deliver ASPIRE courses to all levels of UK Speciality Trainees. Plans are in place to expand ASPIRE to early years Consultants and Vascular Surgery CESR applicants. The development of an open aortic model for simulation training is progressing well. The Research Committee reports that significant NIHR platform trial funding has been allocated to vascular research, something for which both the Society and the SIGs should take great credit. A vascular clinical trials day is being run in Leicester on 20 June (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/vascular-clinical-trials-2023-tickets-609193914397?aff=ebdssbdestsearch). The Workforce Committee has held a well-received trial of their professional behaviours course developed jointly with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) (with special thanks to Alice Hartley, Olivia McBride and Alex Phillips). This is proving to be a productive collaboration between the Vascular Society and RCSEd. The goal is to run this course in every UK surgical department.
The Circulation Foundation is looking to formalise Memorandums of Understanding with the affiliated vascular societies to put the charity on a solid long-term footing. It is also celebrating its 30th year this year, with fundraising events planned for September and at the ASM.
Annual Society Meeting
We have a draft programme for the Society’s 2023 ASM, 22–24 November, at the Conference Centre in Dublin. The theme of the meeting, chosen by Rachel Bell as President, is clinical leadership. There are excellent programmes for the President’s (clinical leadership) and Vice-President’s (net-zero vascular surgery) sessions.
More details will follow soon, with registrations opening in July.
Venous interventions
The publication by the Society of Vascular Nurses (SVN) of ‘A guide for establishing a nurse-delivered venous intervention service’ https://assets.radcliffecardiology.com/s3fs-public/webinar/2023-04/SVN%20Guide%20WEB%20Singles.pdf has thrown a spotlight on venous disease management and prompted social media debate. This debate was discussed at Open Council with input from the Venous Forum and SVN. We recognised that there has been a wider NHS ‘deprioritisation’ of venous services, but that this should not lead to less robust clinical care. Training is key and there is a need to address this, both for nursing and medical staff (including trainees). Examples of best practice in training were shared. Overall, the SVN document was welcomed for providing a clear pathway and governance frameworks for advanced nurse practitioner (or surgical care practitioner)-led superficial venous services.
Other news
The Society has appointed LightMedia to develop new websites for the Vascular Society and Circulation Foundation. Miss Meryl Davis retired from NHS vascular surgery practice in April and has asked to step down from VS Council. Mr Marco Baroni, Consultant Vascular Surgeon in York, has been appointed to serve for the vacant term on Elected Council. We are grateful for Meryl’s work at vice-chair of the CF and look forward to welcoming Marco to his new role. Mr Arun Pherwani, Chair of the Audit and Quality Improvement Committee, has been recognised by BSIR for his work with Interventional Radiology and the National Vascular Registry (NVR) by the award of an Honorary BSIR Fellowship. Professor Matt Bown, Chair of the Research Committee, has been awarded a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professorship in Vascular Surgery.
Marcus Brooks
Honorary Secretary
Article DOI:
Journal Reference:
J.Vasc.Soc.G.B.Irel. 2023;2(3):186-190
Publication date:
May 18, 2023
