Neeraj Bhasin (Huddersfield, UK), chair of the Circulation Foundation (CF), highlights recent efforts from the charity to raise awareness and funds for research into the prevention and treatment of vascular disease.
The CF was formed in 1992 and is the charity arm of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland (VSGBI). I was delighted to take over as chair from Rachel Bell (Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, UK) in November 2022, as she started her successful year as VS president, and work towards our three aims:
- To support vital research into vascular disease
- To support individuals living with vascular disease
- To raise awareness of the impact vascular disease has on our patients, their carers, and the wider National Health Service (NHS)
A recent landmark step in the CF’s evolution was agreeing a partnership arrangement with the College and Society for Clinical Vascular Science, Rouleaux Club, and Society of Vascular Nurses, to become the charity of the vascular societies. This reflects not only existing arrangements with the annual scientific meeting and journal but also the multidisciplinary nature of our working lives. I firmly believe this will make the charity stronger, extend its reach, bring diversity of ideas and perspectives, and ensure it is more sustainable and resilient, through a single, unified, louder voice.
The second significant recent step was the wholesale refresh of our website. It is now engaging and fit for the future, something we can all be proud to signpost patients, relatives, multidisciplinary team (MDT) colleagues, partner organisations, and corporate organisations to.
The website holds an extensive free resource for vascular colleagues, healthcare professionals more widely, and—most importantly—our patients. We are building to 26 patient information leaflets, and are grateful to individual colleagues, and those from VS Research Specialist Interest Groups, the Venous Forum, and the British Society of Endovascular Therapy (BSET), for their time in refreshing and building this library. I hope that all units will use this free resource moving forward to help shared, informed decision-making.
The patient-focused infographic on self-directed exercise for intermittent claudication was initially very well received and is relevant due to the limited provision of supervised exercise programmes. We serve ethnically diverse populations across our respective catchments and, therefore, to reduce health inequalities, this infographic has been translated into 15 different languages so we can support patients from a range of backgrounds to self-care. Again, this is a free resource for all to access on the website.
Whilst there is so much new content on the website, including our shop for CF merchandise and information about our CF-funded research fellows’ work, the final facet I wanted to highlight is a set of three high-impact infographics/fact sheets for peripheral arterial disease, abdominal aortic aneurysms and venous disease. These are for colleagues to use to raise awareness of vascular disease with patients, stakeholders within their organisation, and other external organisations. They form an excellent basis around which to have a wider discussion.
We have been busy raising awareness of vascular disease, and the conditions we care for, through building relationships with the Vascular and Venous All Party Parliamentary Group (VVAPPG), who invited us to the Houses of Parliament to support a drop-in session around vascular and venous disease. We have also met with Health Tech and corporate stakeholders to explore building mutually beneficial resources for our patients, and to aid healthcare professionals in their work. We have ensured a presence at education events, voluntary sector health champion events, and appeared within various written media, created three podcasts of our own (available on the website), and appeared on the radio.
We have created an ambitious plan for my last year as chair, and at the end of 2025 I will hand the baton over to Rachael Forsythe, consultant vascular surgeon at the Edinburgh Vascular Unit (Edinburgh, UK). With her experience and approach, I could not be surer that the CF has an exceptionally bright future. I must also thank Liz, Amy, Georgia and Gail, from Executive Business Support Ltd, who are the energy behind the above achievements.
Most importantly, none of the above would be possible without the kindness and donations of VS members, colleagues, patients, carers, members of the public and a range of other people. As well as donating incredible raffle prizes, fundraising on Antarctic expeditions and mountain climbs, engaging with our annual ‘Body Walk’ during Vascular Health Awareness Month and running marathons, the dedication that has been shown, and awesome physical and psychological demands people have overcome in support of the CF, is humbling and epic.
We hope you will visit our website, listen to our podcasts, use our free resources to support your patients, and hopefully, support the Circulation Foundation.
Neeraj Bhasin is executive medical director and a consultant vascular surgeon at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation NHS (Huddersfield, UK).
