Our speaker on 27 March 2017 was Poppy Hanbury, Fund-raising Manager for The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire British Heart Foundation (BHF).

In a fascinating, fact-filled talk, she explained to us the history of the involvement of BHF in the heart research timeline which began in 1963 with the development of pacemakers. This was followed by heart transplants in 1968, proof that blood clots cause heart attacks in 1976, the mapping of heart defects in the 1980s, statins in 1994 and in 2013 the development of centres of excellence for heart failure.

Amongst a mass of information she highlighted how cardiac arrest is still easily the biggest killer in the UK and shared alarming statistic that out of 30,000 heart attacks per year in UK only 1 in 10 survive, almost exclusively because not enough people can do CPR (that’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation). The same statistic in other countries is much better, for example in Scandinavia it is 5 in 10. Research is still vital, over £100 million pa, some £65 million spent in Oxford. They have just over 400 nurses for Britain.

The website is www.bhf.org.uk