Abbreviation | BHF |
---|---|
Formation | 1961 |
Legal status | Registered charity |
Purpose | Heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors |
Location | |
Coordinates | 51°32′01″N0°08′23″W / 51.533729°N 0.139671°W |
Region served | United Kingdom |
Patron | King Charles III [1] |
Chairwoman | Karen A. Frank [2] |
Chief Executive | Dr Charmaine Griffiths [3] |
Chief Scientific and Medical Officer | Professor Bryan Williams OBE [4] |
Website | bhf |
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a cardiovascular research charity in the United Kingdom. [5] It funds medical research related to heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors, and runs influencing work aimed at shaping public policy and raising awareness. [5]
In 2021, a study conducted by YouGov ranked the British Heart Foundation as the top charity or organisation in the UK by per cent of adults who hold a positive opinion of the organisation. [6]
The British Heart Foundation was founded in 1961 by a group of medical professionals who were concerned about the increasing death rate from cardiovascular disease. They wanted to fund extra research into the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of heart and circulatory diseases. [7]
Dr Charmaine Griffiths has been the BHF's Chief Executive since February 2020, succeeding Simon Gillespie OBE. Professor Bryan Williams OBE became the charity's first Chief Scientific and Medical Officer (CSMO) in December 2023, after Professor Sir Nilesh Samani stood down as Medical Director after more than 7 years in the role. [8]
The BHF's Board of Trustees is made up of up to 14 Trustees, and is a mix of medically-qualified and lay members: [9]
Karen A. Frank is the Chair of the Board of Trustees.
King Charles III has been the BHF's Patron since May 2024, succeeding Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. [10]
The British Heart Foundation's main focus is to fund cardiovascular research, aiming to spend around £100 million a year funding scientists around the UK. They are currently funding over 1000 research projects. [11]
Since 2008 the BHF has been investing in Centres of Research Excellence. The six current centres bring together scientists from a number of disciplines to work on research projects to beat heart and circulatory disease. [12] The current Centres of Research are:
In 2013 the BHF committed to funding three multi-institution Centres of Regenerative Medicine, investing £7.5 million over four years to fund scientists looking for new treatments for heart failure. [13]
The British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Collaborative was launched in 2019, hosted by the British Cardiovascular Society. [14] Designed to support the planning of high-quality national cardiovascular research, it brings together professional societies, research groups and patient and public involvement to better coordinate and prioritise research efforts. [14] It also launched a fund to support the development of clinical research in cardiovascular disease, providing grants from £5,000-20,000, and all topic ideas will be considered. [14]
Other patients and public activities include:
In 2020, The British Heart Foundation had a net income of just over £107m. [17] In the same year, the BHF spent over £93m on funding cardiovascular research. [18]
The charity announced, in June 2021, that it had joined forces with leading cardiovascular research funders around the world to form the Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum (GCRFF). [19] In addition to the British Heart Foundation, the Forum's members are:
In 2019, The British Heart Foundation launched the Big Beat Challenge, a global competition with a single award of £30m for the research team who proposed a transformational solution to any cardiovascular disease. [21] The Big Beat Challenge was open to applications from any country globally, and accepted proposals in any research area related to cardiovascular disease. Based on a panel of BHF research-funding committee members and an International Advisory panel, a shortlist was finalised in January 2020 to include a robotic heart, a 'Google map' of atherosclerosis, a project harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and wearables to create a cardiovascular digital twin of a patient, and a genetic cure for inherited heart conditions. [22]
CureHeart, led by co-PIs Professor Hugh Christian Watkins and Professor Christine Seidman, which aims to find a cure for genetic cardiomyopathies, was announced as the winner of the Big Beat Challenge in July 2022. [23]
BHF fundraising events accounted for nearly £54m of income in 2019-20. [24]
The BHF won the bid to be named as the London Marathon charity partner for the 2022 raise, aiming to raise £3m through the partnership to invest in clinical research. [25]
The annual London to Brighton Bike Ride is a flagship fundraising event, with over 16,000 cyclists and raising over £2.8m. [26] The event was cancelled in 2020 and 2021, and was expected to return in 2022 with PureGym as the sponsor. [26] [ needs update ]
The BHF runs the largest network of charity shops in the UK, and generates income through online sales too. [27] As of 2021, they run around 730 shops which include over 160 furniture and electrical shops selling up to 85,000 items daily. [28] The BHF Retail division makes roughly £30 million every year. [29]
This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality .(December 2024) |
In June 2011, the British Heart Foundation was one of several health charities, alongside Cancer Research UK, the Alzheimer's Society and Parkinson's UK, targeted by animal rights pressure group Animal Aid, in a series of newspaper advertisements urging the public not to donate to the organizations under the pretence of funding experiments on animals. [32] [33] The pressure group argued that 100 dogs had died since 1988 during the experiments. [34] [35]
The BHF has responded to these criticisms by saying the charity only funds animal research after grant applications have gone through an independent peer review process and follows the three Rs principles when considering such grants. [36]
In 2016, the BHF was fined by the UK Information Commissioner's Office which ruled that the charity had breached data protection legislation by employing external bodies to analyse the financial status of supporters in order to appeal to them for further donations, a practice known as 'wealth screening'. [37] BBC News Online reported that, "Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said donors had not been informed of the charity's practices, and were therefore unable to consent or object to them." She suggested other charities could also be engaged in similar activities. [37]
The charity's chief executive stated that "The ICO's conclusions were 'wrong, disproportionate and inconsistent […] We find the decision surprising, as earlier this year in June the ICO praised our data handling. Our trustees will therefore consider whether it's in the interests of our supporters and beneficiaries to challenge this decision." [37]
The Heart Protection Study was a randomized controlled trial run by the Clinical Trial Service Unit, and funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) in the United Kingdom. It studied the use of the cholesterol lowering drug, simvastatin 40 mg and vitamin supplementation in people who were at risk of cardiovascular disease. It was led by Jane Armitage, an epidemiologist at the Clinical Trial Service Unit.
Magdi Habib Yacoub is an Egyptian-British retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London, best known for his early work in repairing heart valves with surgeon Donald Ross, adapting the Ross procedure, where the diseased aortic valve is replaced with the person's own pulmonary valve, devising the arterial switch operation (ASO) in transposition of the great arteries, and establishing the heart transplantation centre at Harefield Hospital in 1980 with a heart transplant for Derrick Morris, who at the time of his death was Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient. Yacoub subsequently performed the UK's first combined heart and lung transplant in 1983.
Parkinson's UK is a Parkinson's research and support charity in the United Kingdom. In April 2010, the Parkinson's Disease Society changed its name to become Parkinson's UK. Its aims are to improve the quality of life for people affected by Parkinson's and find a cure for the condition.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is the name of a number of autonomous pressure groups (charities) in the anglosphere that seek to publicize the risks associated with tobacco smoking and campaign for greater restrictions on use and on cigarette and tobacco sales.
The National Heart Foundation of Australia is a charity established in 1959. Its activities have been funding cardiovascular research, supporting health professionals in their practice, developing health promotion activities, informing and educating the public and assisting people with cardiovascular disease. It describes its mission as "to reduce heart disease and improve the heart health and quality of life of all Australians through our work in Risk Reduction, Support, Care and Research."
The British Nutrition Foundation is a British lobby group mainly funded by the food industry. It has been widely criticised for conflicts of interest, and for downplaying them. It presents itself to journalists, the public, and the government as a independent, impartial, disinterested, and scientifically-rigorous; its industry funders also promote this image.
Dame Anna Felicja Dominiczak is a Polish-born British medical researcher, Regius Professor of Medicine - the first woman to hold this position, and the Chief Scientist (Health) for the Scottish Government. From 2010 to 2020, Dominiczak was the Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She is an Honorary Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist for the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, and Health Innovation Champion for the Medical Research Council. From 2013 to 2015, Dominiczak was president of the European Society of Hypertension. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of Precision Medicine, a new journal launched in July 2023.
John Eric Deanfield is a British professor of cardiology and past Olympic fencer.
Dame Parveen June Kumar is a British doctor who is a Professor of Medicine and Education at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. She worked in the NHS for over 40 years as a consultant gastroenterologist and physician at Barts and the London Hospitals and the Homerton University Hospital. She was the President of the British Medical Association in 2006, of the Royal Society of Medicine from 2010 to 2012, of the Medical Women's Federation from 2016 to 2018 and of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund from 2013 to 2020. She was also Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians from 2003 to 2005. In addition, she was a founding non-executive director of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, chaired the Medicines Commission UK until 2005, and also chaired the BUPA Foundation Charity for Research until 2013.
Peter Sleight was a British research cardiologist and an Honorary Consultant Physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Sleight was Emeritus Field Marshal Alexander Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Peter Leslie Weissberg is a British physician.
Sir Nilesh Jayantilal Samani, is a British physician who is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Leicester, and a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester. He was Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation from 2016 to 2023.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed is a British clinical pharmacologist and geneticist. Since 2007 he has been the NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics at the University of Liverpool.
Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist, health campaigner, and author, who became well known during the COVID-19 pandemic after being accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations. He contends that people should reduce sugar in their diet, adopt a low-carb and high-fat diet, and reduce their use of prescription drugs. He was the first science director of Action on Sugar in 2014, was listed as one of The Sunday Times 500 most influential people in 2016, and was twice recognized as one of the top fifty black and minority ethnic community member pioneers in the UK's National Health Service by the Health Service Journal. Malhotra is co-author of a book called The Pioppi Diet.
Barbara Casadei is British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford, based in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine.
Rhian Merry Touyz Koppel is a Canadian medical researcher. She is currently serving as the Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada, since 2021. A clinician scientist, her research primarily focuses on hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Shoumo Bhattacharya is an Indian medical doctor and academic, and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the BHF Centre of Research Excellence, University of Oxford.
The National Heart Foundation of New Zealand is a registered New Zealand heart health charity established in 1968. It funds research into heart disease, and provides education to promote healthy lifestyles to prevent heart disease. It has awarded over $78 million to fund research and specialist training for cardiologists since 1970. The funding has provided over 1,800 research and training grants awarded in New Zealand.
Deborah A. Lawlor is a British epidemiologist and professor at the University of Bristol, where she is the deputy director of the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit. She is also a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Her main areas of research are perinatal, reproductive and cardio-metabolic health. Lawlor was awarded a CBE in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to social and community medicine research.
Sheila Glennis Haworth was a British paediatric cardiologist and academic at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She specialised in pulmonary hypertension in children, and established the UK Paediatric Pulmonary Hypertension Service.