Letter to the editor: Death of the father of cardiac care in Sussex

An Honorary Advisor to South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust and London Ambulance Service NHS Trust; Douglas worked at the Royal Sussex County Hospital between 1970 and 1991 as a Consultant.

When Douglas arrived in Brighton from the very beginning he was keen to start work to open a cardiac department (which did not exist); there were six acute hospitals at the time but none of them had dedicated cardiac facilities. The Royal Sussex County Hospital was in the process of opening an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) and Douglas was given a small area for the first four Coronary Care beds; opening a clinic to offer specialist treatment.

In 1979 Douglas was joined by Dr Richard Vincent, the clinic had become a department. Wonderfully kind patients wanted to pay for the specialist care and services they received and ‘The Cardiac Department Discretionary Fund’ was set up, the fund was used to buy equipment and support the growth of the department even further.

The discretionary fund was also able to support other areas of cardiac care including local research and community resuscitation training programmes, one of these was ‘Heart Guard’ the second of its type in Europe. By 1984 over 20,000 residents had been trained in basic life support and were also given access to defibrillator familiarisation sessions - to better understand their huge importance in saving lives.

In 1987 ‘The Cardiac Department Discretionary Fund’ was incorporated (with the help of former patient/trustee and friend – Mike Long) as a charitable company and called the Brighton Heart Support Trust. The charity funded Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) on two railway stations, we believe that these were the first two publicly accessible defibrillators in Europe (which led to the county wide SHC partner project of railway defibrillator installation from 2015/16).

The Brighton Heart Support Trust continued to fund innovative equipment, research and training programmes within an ever-increasing radius and as a result started to fund projects outside the immediate vicinity of Brighton; in 2006 – The Sussex Heart Charity was formed.

I got to know Douglas joining the board of trustees back in 2006 as a local business owner – advisor, working as a volunteer directly with CEO Terry Ayres in the office and at events. I was asked to consider joining the board by Terry; becoming a trustee in 2010, when Douglas was still on the board of the charity he founded. To this day I remember very well his cheeky, intelligent, charm, and chastising too! I will miss him terribly.

All of us at The Sussex Heart Charity know words can’t take away the hurt the family are feeling, nevertheless all of us who knew Douglas and I am sure I speak for past patients, colleagues too - want you to know how much we all care; the entire board of volunteer trustees, staff – cardiac patients across Sussex and their families. We send the entire family love and strength in this time of loss.

Jason Palmer

Former Trustee and Chair;

Charity Ambassador

The Sussex Heart Charity (SHC)

www.sussexheartcharity.org