UK Awarded Valve For Life Funding

February 19th 2020

The United Kingdom has been announced as the next region to be awarded the Valve for Life grant from the EAPCI (European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions). Launched in 2015, the initiative aims to improve transcatheter valve interventions (both aortic and mitral) across Europe. Funded by the medical device industry, the grant is awarded to countries with a low uptake of transcatheter valve interventions within Europe. The chosen countries then use the grant is then used to address barriers to access or methods to increase capacity within the country.

Poland was the first country to join the initiative and with the help of the Valve for Life grant, has conducted a public campaign to raise awareness of TAVI within the general population as well as speaking at high-profile conferences. France was the second country to join the initiative deciding to use the funding to set-up two registries to show the real number of patients requiring TAVI or mitral percutaneous treatment (MR) to the French Health Authority. Portugal was the third country to take part in the initiative in 2017, with the UK recently joining at the beginning of 2019.

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The next steps for Valve for Life in the UK will be to establish a committee of Interventional Cardiologists from across the UK to work together to map out how the UK will utilise the grant. Their first task will be to perform a detailed review of the uptake of TAVI and Mitraclip within the UK before addressing any barriers to access and initiatives to increase capacities within specialised centres.