Jaydeep Sarma, a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and new joint clinical lead for the MAHSC Cardiovascular Domain, reflects on recent domain achievements and shares his aspirations for 2018.

“Having being a consultant in Manchester for the last ten years, I feel very privileged to have recently taken up this role providing clinical leadership for the CV Domain, along with Professor Daniel Keenan.

The domain has delivered some outstanding work over the last few years to improve clinical outcomes for heart patients.   The quality of this work has been endorsed through adoption by regional bodies wishing to scale up and spread projects citywide.

The Healthy Hearts programme, which addresses three important aspects of cardiovascular disease (Lipid Management, Atrial Fibrillation and Hypertension), has been singled out as one of Health Innovation Manchester’s Exemplar Projects; a first wave of exciting, fast-tracked schemes, which have the potential to make a significant difference to people’s health when implemented at scale.  T-MACS, a computerised clinical prediction model which calculates each patient’s probability of acute coronary syndrome, is another domain-supported initiative classified as one of the nine initial Exemplar Projects.

Another example of the calibre of our CV domain-backed projects was the Adrian Parry-Jones led ‘ABC-ICH’ intervention. This pilot reduced the percentage of patients, whose stroke was caused by bleeding on the brain (intracerebral haemorrhage), dying within one month of hospital admission. The wider potential in this initiative was recognised by Greater Manchester Connected Health City which supported wider roll-out of the care package.

Following Professor Pippa Tyrell’s recent retirement, Adrian Parry-Jones, a Consultant Neurologist at Salford Royal, has taken over as the stroke representative in the domain.

As well as our successes, the domain is looking to the future and how we can develop our research as well as our clinical work.  Discussed at our November 2017 away day, there are exciting research possibilities but, also, work to be done to foster more clinical-scientific collaborations in the domain more generally.

One of my personal interests is encouraging more clinicians to be research active and to leverage the research potential of those clinicians, who are also highly scientifically qualified.  For example, several of the 22 cardiologists at Wythenshawe Hospital hold PhDs but do not routinely draw on this expertise.  In my view, there should be more easy-to-access opportunities for those heath care professionals who wish to use existing, or gain new, research qualifications.  The domain does provide Step-up Awards which support clinicians preparing research grant applications by providing backfill funding for their roles.   I would like the domain to look at this area to see what more can be done.

Moving forward, Health Innovation Manchester can help us identify areas suitable for rapid improvement, facilitate links between the right people and navigate complex organisational structures. The organisation’s new Chief Executive Officer, Professor Ben Bridgewater, is a former consultant cardiac surgeon, so I hope we can count on his interest and support for our 2018 developments.”

See here Jaydeep’s Linkedin profile, including his clinical specialties and academic interests.