A healthcare team from Cardiff has scooped a top prize at The BMJ Awards 2016 in London tonight.
The BMJ Awards are the UK’s premier medical awards programme, recognising and celebrating the inspirational work done by doctors and their teams.
This year’s awards attracted more than 300 entries across 15 categories, including anaesthesia, cancer care, dermatology, and palliative care.
The team at University Hospital of Wales won Cardiology Team of the Year for improving detection of heart defects in unborn babies.
Before the project, antenatal detection of congenital heart defects in Wales had been poor, resulting in excess illness and death compared with other UK regions.
But in 2010, a new screening technique was introduced to visualise the outflow tract, the first of the UK nations to do so.
Since then, detection rates of the main heart abnormalities have increased dramatically – making Wales the UK national leader in such screening techniques.
The judges said the team: “Implemented an impressive program of service transformation accompanied by comprehensive data collection and a well designed evaluation of the project, which has clear potential for wider uptake to improve patient outcomes.”
