POOR PACING SERVICES IN UK

The UK is poorly served for pacing services compared to Western Europe. The service is also patchy what we call here a postcode lottery. To catch up on our near western europe partners the UK needs to implant another 28000 pacemakers per year. This is a shocking indictment of our health services and our government. People who need pacemakers are not getting them when they need them and this of course can and does prove fatal. Pacing specialists are not getting the support they need. There also needs to be a doubling of pacing heart specialists throughout the UK just to match the services in other countries.Lobby your member of parliment. I intend to do just that, as I too have suffered unnecessarily, nearly dying in the UK due to late implantation. Peter

3 Comments

Provision of Rhythm Management Care

by Seska - 2008-01-15 05:01:40

It is true that we dont have as many Electrophysiologists / rhythm specialists and general Cardiologists per million of population as many other countries, support is needed from authorities / government to correct this. More training places for consultants need to be made available and they need to be supported in specialist training.

Another issue is lack of support for Cardiac Physiologists (technicians) and I speak from personal professional experience, more training places are needed in pacing centres and both trainees and qualified staff need to be paid fairly to attract more people into the profession.

Poor pacing services

by Fluzy Suzy - 2008-01-15 12:01:21

Hi Pete - I live in the U.K. and i must say that my hospital in the West Midlands, one of the newest heart and lung hospitals could not do any better if they tried. I agree to some extent we are far behind the american hospitals, but I am glad I am here and not there.
Take care

Well Spoken Seska

by peter - 2008-01-16 03:01:38

I have now made an appointment to see my MP to put pressure on our government to improve services. I will report back to let you all know how it went in a few weeks time. Thanks for your comments Seska. Peter

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