# British Heart Foundation: An Independent Guide > A guided route through what the British Heart Foundation actually does, assembled entirely from the charity's own published material, NHS guidance and its audited accounts. - **Canonical URL:** https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/experience/british-heart-foundation - **Category:** Social Change & Awareness - **Curated by:** SKEMR - **Contents:** 5 journeys, 17 chapters, 130 sources - **Last updated:** 2026-11-03 ## What this is A curated transmedia experience: existing web sources selected and ordered by an editor. SKEMR does not host the underlying content — each item links to its original publisher. Journeys are alternative routes through the same material. ## Journeys ### The Whole Picture Best for anyone assessing the British Heart Foundation as a whole, taking all seventeen chapters in order from who they are to how to give. - Steps: 132 - Machine-readable: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j1 - Briefing for a chat: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j1/briefing.md ### Learn to Save Someone's Life in Fifteen Minutes Best for anyone who wants the one skill worth taking from this file — heart attack versus cardiac arrest, then CPR, then finding your nearest defibrillator — though if someone is unresponsive and not breathing normally, stop reading and call 999. - Steps: 27 - Machine-readable: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j2 - Briefing for a chat: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j2/briefing.md ### If You Are Worried About Your Heart Best for someone who came here because of a symptom, a family history or a health-check letter, leading with the official guidance and the practical business of getting seen — though if you think it is a heart attack or a cardiac arrest, call 999 now. - Steps: 24 - Machine-readable: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j3 - Briefing for a chat: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j3/briefing.md ### How the Charity Works, For Partners and Funders Best for a prospective partner, major donor or journalist assessing the organisation rather than supporting it, following the money from a legacy to a professorship. - Steps: 53 - Machine-readable: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j4 - Briefing for a chat: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j4/briefing.md ### Brief an AI on the British Heart Foundation Best for loading into an assistant so it answers from the charity's own published material rather than training data, with the accuracy rules carried on each step's note. - Steps: 36 - Machine-readable: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j5 - Briefing for a chat: https://prodcms-skemr-monolith-d3fzb9bva4fsfbbj.northeurope-01.azurewebsites.net/api/ai-context/british-heart-foundation/journeys/j5/briefing.md ## Chapters - **Who the British Heart Foundation Are** — A charity registered in England and Wales (225971), Scotland (SC039426) and the Isle of Man (1295), funding heart and circulatory disease research for more than sixty years. In its own words its vision is a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases, and its work has four strands: funding research, providing information and support, placing defibrillators and teaching CPR, and campaigning on policy. It describes itself as the biggest independent funder of heart and circulatory research in the UK, funding around £100 million of research a year, and it runs a cardiac nurse helpline and around 640 shops, about 150 of which it announced in June 2026 it plans to close by March 2028. - **The Signs, and the Difference That Matters** — The most important chapter here, and the one with a genuine emergency in it. A heart attack and a cardiac arrest are not the same thing. The charity's own definition: a heart attack is a sudden loss of blood flow to part of the heart muscle; a cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood around the body. One is a blood-flow problem, the other is the heart stopping. They need different responses, and the public conflates them constantly. On the heart attack symptoms the charity lists — chest pain or discomfort that comes on suddenly and does not go away, pain spreading to either arm, the neck, jaw, upper back or stomach, feeling sick, sweaty, light-headed or short of breath — its instruction is to call 999, and it adds that you should not worry about wasting anyone's time. It also says symptoms differ between people, that you may not have all of them, and that while women and men generally experience the same symptoms, research shows women tend not to recognise them as a heart attack as quickly. This chapter indexes those pages. It does not summarise them into a checklist, because a checklist is the wrong tool for something where the correct action is a phone call. - **Risk, and Which Parts of It Move** — The charity's general position is that many heart and circulatory diseases are caused by risk factors that can be controlled, treated or modified — which is a more hopeful claim than it first sounds, and a more demanding one. The factors it names are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, mental health, smoking, physical inactivity, alcohol, stress, air pollution and family history. Two honest notes. The charity says stress is not a direct risk factor but is linked to habits that raise risk, and family history cannot itself be changed, though it raises risk rather than deciding the outcome. For what to do about your own risk, the practical routes are your GP, an NHS Health Check if you are eligible, and the charity's cardiac nurse helpline. - **The Scale of It** — Three figures the charity states in plain text on its own homepage: over 8 million people in the UK are living with cardiovascular disease, it kills one in four people in the UK, and someone dies from a cardiovascular disease every three minutes. The detailed statistics — prevalence, mortality, deaths under 75, inequalities, costs — live in a compendium and a twice-yearly factsheet rather than on a web page, and this chapter links those rather than paraphrasing figures out of a PDF. If you need a number for a funding bid or an article, take it from the factsheet with its date attached, not from here. - **CPR: Fifteen Minutes That Changes the Odds** — The single most useful thing in this experience, and it is free. The charity states that over 40,000 people a year have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the UK and fewer than one in ten survive, and that prompt CPR together with a defibrillator can more than double the chance of survival. RevivR is its free interactive course: about fifteen minutes, on a phone or tablet, practising on a cushion, ending with a certificate and a mock 999 call. It is built for adult CPR; child and baby CPR have separate instructions. There is also a schools programme and a version organisations can use to train staff. Most chapters in most experiences are things to know. This one is a thing to do, and the argument for doing it is arithmetic rather than sentiment. - **Defibrillators, and the Map Nobody Had** — A defibrillator that nobody can find is a defibrillator that does not exist. The Circuit is the national defibrillator network: a map that ambulance services consult when a 999 caller reports a cardiac arrest, so the call handler can send a bystander to the nearest one. Over 100,000 are registered on it, and the charity estimates tens of thousands more are not. The reason this matters is in the charity's own figure: every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to ten per cent. Registering one is free and takes minutes, and an unregistered device also means its guardian gets no maintenance reminders. If you know of a defibrillator at a workplace, a village hall or a gym, checking whether it is on the map is a genuinely useful afternoon. - **Where the Money Comes From** — Overwhelmingly from the public, and unusually from the dead. In 2025/26 the charity raised £175.3m, of which £105.5m came from legacies — gifts in wills — and £62.1m from fundraising, which it describes as a record. The year before, 2024/25, it raised £181m on a breakdown of £108.4m legacies, £58.2m fundraising, £10.8m investments and other, and £3.6m from trading. That trading line is the net figure in that breakdown rather than what the shops turn over, and the annual report is where to understand the retail operation properly. Note the two years carefully: the charity publishes figures on both and they are not interchangeable. - **Where the Money Goes** — In 2025/26 total spending was £200.7m, including £103.3m on research (£96.2m after accounting adjustments), £54.2m on health information and support, and £50.3m invested to grow future income. For 2024/25 the charity publishes a cleaner ratio: of every £1 raised, 72p went directly to beating cardiovascular disease and 28p was reinvested to generate future funds. Its donation pages state at least 70p in every £1. That last 28p is the line a sceptical donor asks about, and the charity publishes it rather than hiding it — which is the right way to be judged on it. - **The Researchers, and Their Universities** — This is where the university partnership question gets a concrete answer, and it is a better answer than most charities can give. The charity names 23 professors it funds, with their institutions: Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial, King's College London, Leicester, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Queen Mary University of London. Research Professorships have been awarded since 2025 and Personal Chairs were awarded until 2024. Among them: Charalambos Antoniades at Oxford on how fat around the arteries signals to the heart, using AI across genetic, molecular and imaging data; John Danesh at Cambridge on how these diseases develop in multi-ethnic groups, which connects directly to Sohel's account later in this experience; Hugh Watkins at Oxford, who leads CureHeart. One honest limitation: these profile pages are factual rather than personal, and none carries a quotation from the researcher. For researchers in their own words, the chapter on people is where to go. - **CureHeart, and the Big Bets** — The charity's biggest ever research grant: £30 million awarded in 2022 to Hugh Watkins at Oxford and Christine Seidman at Harvard, jointly leading an international team developing gene therapies that could edit or silence the faulty genes behind inherited heart muscle diseases. Alongside it sits a planned series of Cardiovascular Grand Challenges over five years. Read these pages with their tense attached: CureHeart aims to deliver a cure and is moving towards testing in patients. It has not cured anyone yet, and the charity says so. The honest version of this chapter is a serious, well-funded attempt in progress — which is a better thing to pitch than a breakthrough that has not happened. - **Trials, Impact, and a Note on Attribution** — How research reaches patients, and the chapter where this experience is most careful. The charity funds clinical studies and translational awards through committees that meet twice a year, publishes interactive maps of where its research and trials are funded across the UK, and runs a searchable directory of funded projects. On what it has achieved, its research-successes page speaks of clot-busting drugs, transplants and small devices to correct heartbeats, and uses hedged language throughout — our research has helped, helped transform, is helping develop. That hedging is appropriate, because cardiovascular medicine advanced through many funders at once. But unlike some charities the page does not spell out an attribution caveat, so this experience supplies one: these are contributions to fields, not sole credit for results, and the specific claims worth quoting are the funded professorships, the named programmes and the audited spend rather than any individual breakthrough. - **Commercialisation and Policy** — The two least visible parts of the organisation. On commercialisation, CardioStars is a partnership launched in 2024 with Panacea Innovation to help translate cardiovascular research towards products and companies — a smaller and younger operation than the equivalent at some research charities, and worth understanding as an early-stage effort rather than a mature pipeline. On policy, the charity works with governments across the UK on prevention, diagnosis and NHS capacity. A meaningful share of what a health charity achieves is not a discovery at all but a regulation, and any account that omits this is incomplete. - **The Events People Raise Money At** — The charity's signature event is the London to Brighton Bike Ride, now joined by an off-road version, alongside places at a long list of mass-participation runs — Brighton Marathon, the Bath, Hackney, Big Half, Manchester and Royal Parks half marathons, the Great Manchester Run, the Edinburgh Marathon Festival. There are also free virtual challenges such as the Heart MOT Challenge, and self-organised fundraising including DECHOX, the sponsored month without chocolate. The practical point of this chapter: the question is rarely whether to support the charity and almost always whether something is happening near you on a free weekend. - **The Charity Shops** — Around 640 shops, still one of the largest charity retail estates in the UK, though in June 2026 the charity announced plans to close about 150 of them by March 2028. They sell donated clothes, accessories, homeware, toys, media, furniture, electricals and technology. The mechanisms worth knowing are practical: retail Gift Aid makes a donation worth 25 per cent more than whatever the item sells for, at no cost to you; furniture, electricals and homeware can be collected free from your home; and small items can be posted free through a Collect+ drop-off. There is also a list of what the shops cannot take, and checking it before you load the car is itself a small kindness, because unsellable items cost the charity money to dispose of. - **Volunteering** — Six routes in: the shops, local fundraising groups, event roles such as handing out medals and staffing cheer points, the Action Team for one-off opportunities, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, and workplace volunteering. Opportunities are searchable on the charity's own volunteer portal. The charity's volunteer pages do not state a minimum commitment or an age limit, so this chapter does not invent one — the FAQ page is linked for anyone who needs the specifics. What the charity does publish, unusually well, is named volunteers talking about why they do it, and those accounts are in the chapter on people rather than summarised here. - **People, In Their Own Published Words** — Every person here is named because they or the charity chose to publish their account, and every quotation comes from those pages. Nothing is composite or dramatised. Jack Taylor, 20, from Nottingham, collapsed playing basketball at 17 in February 2024 with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy linked to the MYBPC3 gene; he met Hugh Watkins, who leads CureHeart, in September 2026, and said that hearing about the research made him not only grateful but also hopeful, and that hopefully one day he will be cured of this, but more importantly, the next generation. Watkins said it was really special meeting Jack, and that by the time Jack has children he really hopes they will have found a cure. Sohel had a cardiac arrest at his gym at 47, triggered by a heart attack; his instructor Mike gave CPR until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator, he had a triple bypass, and he later ran a 5k with his son Solly for the charity. He said that within the South Asian community he does not think many people know about heart attacks, and that he believes we need more funding for this research — research which, on the charity's own page, is Professor John Danesh's. Dean, a strength and conditioning coach from Harrogate, mistook a heart attack for heartburn for several days in November 2024 before calling NHS 111; his line is the whole case for the second chapter of this experience: not recognising heart attack symptoms left me close to death. Helen had a cardiac arrest at 53 while salsa dancing and was saved by bystander CPR and a defibrillator at the venue; she said she was so lucky that the people around her worked together to save her life, and her daughter Maddy, then sitting A-levels, said she learned she is strong and can cope. And Shirley West of Guildford, 79, has volunteered for 40 years, chairs the local fundraising group, holds the British Empire Medal, and says her approach is to put the fun into fundraising. One necessary note: these are people who survived, and the charity publishes them because they are encouraging. Fewer than one in ten people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Both things are true and this chapter holds them together. - **How to Give, and Where to Get Support** — Every link here is a real British Heart Foundation page, checked rather than reconstructed. Giving: a one-off or regular donation, Gift Aid on anything you already give, a gift in memory, a gift in a will — which is the charity's single largest income source at £105.5m in 2025/26 — donating through your salary, the weekly lottery, or donated goods. Support, which matters just as much and is easier to miss: cardiac nurses on the Heart Helpline, 0808 802 1234, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm; a moderated online community; and practical guidance on living with a heart condition, from driving to travel to returning to exercise. If you came to this experience worried rather than generous, the helpline is the one to use. ## Sources - [British Heart Foundation](https://www.bhf.org.uk/): The charity's front door, and where three of the headline figures in this experience are stated in plain text rather than buried in a download: over 8 million people in the UK living with cardiovascular disease, one in four deaths, and someone dying from it every three minutes. Worth a minute first,... - [What we do](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do): The charity's own summary of its four strands — research, information and support, CPR and defibrillators, and policy — with the figures it chooses to lead with: over £100m of research funded a year, £437m of research currently in progress, at least 70p in every £1 reaching lifesaving work, over 100... - [Our strategy](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-strategy): The stated plan, which is the fairer way to judge an organisation than its achievements page: not what it has done but what it says it is trying to do next, and whether that is measurable. Read it, then read the annual report, and see whether the two agree. - [Heart attack](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions/heart-attack): The primary source for this chapter and the most important page in the experience. It lists the symptoms, instructs you to call 999, and adds that you should not worry about wasting anyone's time. It also states that symptoms differ between people, that you may not have all of them, and that althoug... - [Cardiac arrest](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions/cardiac-arrest): The other condition, and the distinction this chapter exists for. A cardiac arrest is the heart suddenly stopping; a heart attack is a loss of blood flow to part of the heart muscle. The response differs: a cardiac arrest needs CPR and a defibrillator, immediately, from whoever is there. The NHS lin... - [Heart attack symptoms in women](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions/heart-attack/signs-and-symptoms-of-heart-attacks-in-women): The charity's dedicated page. Its position is that women and men generally experience the same symptoms, but that research shows women tend not to recognise them as a heart attack as quickly — which is why the page exists. - [Conditions A to Z](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions): The full index, from coronary heart disease and heart failure to atrial fibrillation, stroke and spontaneous coronary artery dissection. The point of linking the index rather than a selection: there are many conditions under the heading of heart and circulatory disease, and a specific condition is a... - [Risk factors](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors): The charity's hub, naming high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, mental health, smoking, physical inactivity, alcohol, stress, air pollution and family history, with its framing that many of these diseases are caused by risk factors that can be controlled, treated or modified. Not... - [High blood pressure](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/high-blood-pressure): The factor with the widest gap between how easy it is to measure and how often it goes unmeasured. The charity's line on it is blunt — knowing your blood pressure could save your life — and it supplies a home chart and diary for tracking readings. Of all the pages in this chapter, this is the one mo... - [Family history](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/risk-factors/family-history): Included deliberately, because it is the factor people assume is a verdict. The charity says these diseases can run in families. Family history itself cannot be changed, but it raises risk rather than deciding the outcome, and the other factors in this chapter can still be controlled or treated. If... - [How to save a life](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life): The hub for the charity's CPR and defibrillator work: step-by-step CPR guidance, how to recognise a cardiac arrest, training for schools and organisations, the defibrillator pages and a funded defibrillator scheme for eligible community groups. Start here, then do the fifteen-minute course. This cha... - [How to do CPR](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr): The written instructions, for reading before you need them and for the uncomfortable fact that most people have seen CPR performed only on television. Covers adult CPR and points to the separate guidance for children and babies, which differs and matters. - [CPR training in schools](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/cpr-training-in-schools): The charity's schools programme, which is the quiet long game: teaching a cohort of teenagers CPR produces a population that can respond decades later. Relevant to Sohel's account, where it was a gym instructor who knew what to do, and to Helen's, where it was fellow dancers. - [Defibrillators](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators): What they are, what they do, how to use one, and the thing most people need told: a defibrillator will not let you shock someone who does not need it, and you cannot make things worse by fetching one. Read this alongside the CPR pages; in a cardiac arrest the two are a single action, not alternative... - [The Circuit: the national defibrillator network](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators/national-defibrillator-network-the-circuit): The map ambulance services consult in a cardiac arrest call. Over 100,000 devices registered, and tens of thousands the charity believes are not. The figure that makes the case: every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces survival by up to ten per cent, so a device that is present but unmapp... - [Apply for a defibrillator for your community](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators/apply-for-a-free-defibrillator-for-your-community): The charity's funded scheme for eligible community groups. Included because this chapter should not end at awareness: if you have read the survival arithmetic and your village hall or sports club has no device, this is the page that does something about it. Check the current application window on th... - [Annual report](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/annual-report): The summary of the audited accounts and the most checkable thing the charity publishes. For 2025/26: £175.3m raised, of which £105.5m from legacies and a record £62.1m from fundraising; £103.3m spent on research, £96.2m after accounting adjustments; total spending £200.7m. Any figure in this experie... - [Leaving a gift in your will](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/leave-a-gift-in-your-will): Placed in the income chapter rather than the donation one because of what the accounts show: at £105.5m in 2025/26, legacies are comfortably the charity's largest single income source — larger than all fundraising combined. That is a remarkable dependency and worth understanding before judging anyth... - [How you can help](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help): The whole menu of ways money and time reach the charity, which is the aggregate behind the £62.1m fundraising line. Included here to make the structure of the income legible before the chapters that break each route down. - [Where your money goes](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/where-your-money-goes): The clearest ratio the charity publishes, for 2024/25: of every £1 raised, 72p went directly to beating cardiovascular disease and 28p was reinvested to generate future funds. Underneath that, £197.5m of mission spending, £108.4m committed to research, £47.2m on health information and support, £51.4... - [Information and support](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport): What £54.2m of non-research spending actually buys, and the part of the charity a patient meets. Condition guidance, test and treatment explainers, practical help on driving, travel, work and exercise, emotional support, and the Heart Matters magazine. An honest account of a research charity has to... - [Events](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events): The events calendar: the London to Brighton Bike Ride and its off-road sibling, plus charity places at the Brighton Marathon, the Bath, Hackney, Big Half, Manchester and Royal Parks halves, the Great Manchester Run and the Edinburgh Marathon Festival, and free virtual challenges. Searchable by date... - [London to Brighton Bike Ride](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/bike-rides/london-to-brighton-bike-ride): The charity's signature event, and the one with the longest institutional history. Fifty-four miles from Clapham Common to Brighton seafront, in a field of thousands. Included as the concrete example: this is what the fundraising line in the accounts looks like on the ground. - [Fundraise your own way](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/fundraise): For everything not on the calendar — a collection, a quiz, a workplace challenge, a birthday. The practical scaffolding, including how to set up a page and pay money in. Most fundraising looks far more like this than like a mass-participation bike ride. - [DECHOX](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/fundraise/dechox): A sponsored month without chocolate, which is a more serious proposition than it sounds and a good illustration of how mass fundraising actually works: a simple, shareable, slightly silly commitment that a lot of people will complete. Optional. - [Heart Month](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/support-our-campaigns/heart-month): The charity's annual February campaign, and where several of the published personal accounts in this experience were first gathered. Useful for seeing how a charity sources stories with consent rather than taking them. - [Donate items to our shops](https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods/donate-to-charity-shops): What the shops take: clothes, accessories, jewellery, homeware, kitchenware, toys, games, vinyl and media, and technology including phones, laptops and tablets, with a separate guide on wiping a phone before donating it. Also the list of what cannot be accepted, which is worth reading first because... - [Book a free furniture collection](https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods/book-furniture-collection-near-me): The part of the retail operation that distinguishes it: a free home collection for furniture, electricals and homeware, which is how a charity sells things too large to carry into a shop. If you are clearing a house or replacing a sofa, this is the page. - [Post your donations free](https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods/post-your-donations): A freepost label and a Collect+ drop-off, for small items and for anyone without a shop nearby. The least known of the donation routes and the easiest. Optional. - [The online shop](https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop): New goods and donated items sold online, alongside the physical shops. Included for completeness: buying is a legitimate way to support the charity, and for some people an easier one than giving. - [Shop closures announced in 2026](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2026/june/bhf-proposes-150-shop-closures-to-maintain-sustainable-retail-network): The charity's own announcement, in June 2026, of proposals to close around 150 shops and stores over two financial years — about 90 by the end of March 2027 and the rest by March 2028 — citing rising operating costs and changing customer habits. Read every shop figure in this experience with this at... - [Volunteer](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer): The hub for all six routes: shops, local fundraising groups, events, the Action Team, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and workplace volunteering. The page is explicit that opportunities are flexible and any amount of time helps, and notably does not state a minimum commitment or age limit — so check t... - [Volunteer in our shops](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/volunteer-in-our-shops): The largest single volunteering route, and the backbone of the shop estate. Sorting and pricing stock, serving customers, building displays. Read it alongside Amy Lowe's and Kel Hughes's accounts in the chapter on people — both started here and both ended up employed. - [The Action Team](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/action-team): For one-off volunteering rather than a standing commitment: you join a list and hear about opportunities as they come up. The honest option for people who want to help but cannot promise a regular slot, which is most people. - [Volunteering FAQs](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/volunteer-faqs): Where the specifics the main pages omit actually live — commitment, references, expenses, age requirements. Linked rather than summarised precisely because this experience will not invent a rule the charity has not published. - [The Heart Helpline](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-helpline): Cardiac nurses on 0808 802 1234, freephone, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. This is the service to use if you arrived here worried rather than generous. Not an emergency line — for a suspected heart attack or cardiac arrest the answer is 999. - [Donate](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate): The charity's main donation page and the correct starting point. One-off or regular by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal or Direct Debit; Gift Aid; text to donate; by post; through your salary; shares; in memory; the weekly lottery and raffle; and donated goods. It states that at least 70p of ever... - [Gift Aid](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate/gift-aid): The mechanism that quietly improves almost everything else here. On a cash gift from a UK taxpayer the charity reclaims 25 per cent at no cost to you; on goods you donate to a shop, Gift Aid makes the donation worth 25 per cent more than whatever the item sells for. Five minutes of reading that chan... - [Giving in memory](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate/give-in-memory): For donations in someone's name, including funeral collections and tribute pages, and the Heart of Steel memorial on which a name can be engraved from £30. Handled with more care than most pages on the site. If you are here for this reason, this is the page you want rather than the general form. - [Donating through your salary](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate/donate-through-your-salary): Giving from pay before tax through an employer's scheme, which costs the donor less per pound received than a standard gift. The least-used efficient option in the charity's range, and if you are employed and already give monthly, probably the highest-leverage five minutes in this chapter. - [Policy and public affairs](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-public-affairs): The charity's work with governments across the UK on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and NHS capacity. The least visible part of the organisation and a material part of what it achieves: a regulation on smoking, food or air quality can affect more people than any single trial. An account that omits... - [Our online community](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/our-online-community): A moderated forum for people living with heart conditions and those around them. Included in this chapter because it is the other thing the information-and-support budget pays for, and because for someone newly diagnosed at two in the morning it is worth more than a statistic. - [NHS: Heart attack](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heart-attack/): The NHS's own guidance, included alongside the charity's so you can see two independent official sources agreeing. Its emergency box is headed Immediate action required: call 999 if, and it adds an instruction the charity's page does not: do not drive yourself to A and E. It also distinguishes cardi... - [NHS: Coronary heart disease](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronary-heart-disease/): The underlying disease behind most heart attacks, and the context that makes the symptom lists comprehensible rather than arbitrary. The NHS is the body that actually treats people in the UK, so on any question about your own care its guidance is the operative one. - [NHS: High blood pressure](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-blood-pressure-hypertension/): The NHS view of the same risk factor, including when and how to get checked — which is the step the charity's own risk page does not spell out. Pair the two: the charity explains why it matters, the NHS tells you what to do about it. - [NHS Health Check](https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/nhs-health-check/): A free check for adults in England aged 40 to 74, covering blood pressure, cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. This is the concrete answer to how do I find out my risk, and it is the link in this chapter most likely to be acted on. If you have had a letter about one and not booked it, this is your... - [NHS: Heart failure](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/heart-failure/): Included in the statistics chapter rather than the symptoms one because of what the numbers conceal: heart and circulatory disease is not one condition, and aggregate mortality figures hide completely different illnesses with different trajectories. Heart failure is the clearest example of a conditi... - [NHS: Stroke](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/): Circulatory disease of the brain, included because it sits inside the charity's remit and outside most people's mental model of a heart charity. Stroke has its own time-critical recognition test and its own emergency pathway, both on this page. - [Heart statistics](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/heart-statistics): The charity's statistics hub, and the source to cite rather than any secondary summary. Be aware of its shape before using it: the headline numbers are in a twice-yearly factsheet and an annual compendium rather than on the page itself, so quoting from here means quoting from a dated document, which... - [Cardiovascular disease statistics compendium](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/heart-statistics/heart-statistics-publications/cardiovascular-disease-statistics-2026): The full UK datasets behind the factsheets, in a revised edition published August 2026. This is where a researcher, journalist or funding bid should go. It is downloads rather than a readable page, which is why this experience links it instead of paraphrasing numbers out of it. - [The professors the charity funds](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/our-top-professors): Twenty-three named professors with their institutions and fields, which is the most concrete answer available to what does a research charity actually buy. Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial, King's, Leicester, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Queen Mary are all represented. Research Professorship... - [Professor Charalambos Antoniades, Oxford](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/our-top-professors/professor-charalambos-antoniades): The charity's Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Oxford's Radcliffe Department of Medicine, studying how fat around the arteries signals to the heart and blood vessels in ways that lead to heart attacks and strokes — combining scan types to identify the plaques most likely to rupture, and using... - [Professor John Danesh, Cambridge](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/our-top-professors/professor-john-danesh): Professor of medicine and epidemiology at Cambridge, working on how heart and circulatory diseases develop in multi-ethnic groups, with particular attention to people of South Asian background, who face higher risk. Read it immediately before or after Sohel's account later in this experience: the ch... - [Professor Hugh Watkins, Oxford](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/our-top-professors/professor-hugh-watkins): The professor who leads CureHeart, the charity's largest ever grant. His profile here is the institutional version; his own words are in the World Heart Day article in the chapter on people, where he is interviewed alongside a twenty-year-old survivor of the condition he studies. - [Information for researchers](https://www.bhf.org.uk/for-professionals/information-for-researchers): The application side, written for scientists: what the charity funds, how to apply, how awards are decided, and when committees sit — most four times a year, the Clinical Studies and Translational Awards committees twice. The most useful page here for anyone assessing the charity as a funder rather... - [CureHeart](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/cureheart): The charity's biggest ever research grant: £30 million awarded in 2022 to Hugh Watkins at Oxford and Christine Seidman at Harvard, leading an international team on gene therapies to edit or silence the faulty genes behind inherited heart muscle diseases. Read the tense carefully — this aims to deliv... - [Cardiovascular Grand Challenges](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/cardiovascular-grand-challenges): A planned series of challenges over five years aimed at the field's biggest unsolved problems. Included as the structural counterpart to CureHeart: a funder large enough to make concentrated bets as well as spread small grants, which is a different kind of organisation from one that only does the la... - [A gene therapy research centre](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2024/december/transformational-new-gene-therapy-research-centre-launched): Announced December 2024 with the Medical Research Council. Worth noting for the co-funding pattern it illustrates: the charity more often funds alongside another body than alone, which is also why attributing any result solely to it would be wrong. - [Our research](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research): The research portfolio as presented to the public, and the page where the charity describes itself as the biggest independent funder of heart and circulatory research in the UK, funding around £100 million of projects a year. The hub to orient from before the trials and impact chapter. - [The impact of clinical trials](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/impact-of-clinical-trials): The charity's account of how its funded trials reach patients. Read it as the bridge between a grant and a treatment, and read it alongside the attribution note in this chapter's introduction: trials have many funders, and a contribution is not sole credit. - [Research successes](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/research-successes): The achievements page, and the one to read most carefully. It speaks of clot-busting drugs, transplants and small devices to correct heartbeats, and names Professor Antoniades's work and CureHeart. Its language is hedged throughout — our research has helped, helped transform, is helping develop — an... - [CardioStars](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2024/march/bhf-partners-with-panacea-innovation-to-launch-cardiostars): A partnership launched in March 2024 with Panacea Innovation to help translate cardiovascular research towards products and companies. Included with a proportionate framing: this is a young, comparatively small commercialisation effort rather than a mature drug-development arm, and it should be asse... - [The research strategy](https://www.bhf.org.uk/for-professionals/information-for-researchers/our-research-strategy): How the charity decides what to fund and why, which is the question a serious partner or major donor actually wants answered. Drier than the public pages and considerably more informative about where £100 million a year goes. - [A survivor meets the scientist](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2026/september/cardiac-arrest-survivor-meets-cureheart-scientist-world-heart-day): Published 29 September 2026. Jack Taylor, 20, from Nottingham, collapsed playing basketball at 17 in February 2024 with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy linked to the MYBPC3 gene; he now studies software engineering at Nottingham Trent. He meets Professor Hugh Watkins, who with Professor Christine Seidma... - [Sohel's story](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/support-our-campaigns/heart-month/sohels-story): Sohel had a cardiac arrest at his gym at 47, triggered by a heart attack, while doing his usual Monday circuit training. His instructor Mike performed CPR until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator. He had a triple bypass, has since reviewed his risk factors, and completed a 5k trail challenge wi... - [Dean's story](https://www.bhf.org.uk/keep-us-beating/deans-story): A strength and conditioning coach from Harrogate and a father of two, Dean had a heart attack in November 2024 at 53 and mistook it for heartburn. He felt unwell for several days and on about the fourth was too ill to train a client; he rang NHS 111, the operator recognised his symptoms immediately,... - [Helen and Maddy's story](https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/my-story/helen-and-maddy-story): Helen had a cardiac arrest at 53 while salsa dancing; the people around her performed CPR and used the defibrillator at the venue, and hospital tests found she had also had a heart attack with several blocked arteries. She spent more than two weeks in hospital while her daughter Maddy, then sitting... - [Forty years of fundraising](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/volunteer-stories/the-heart-lady-celebrates-40-years-with-bhf): Shirley West of Guildford, known locally as Mrs Guildford and The Heart Lady, turns 79 this year and has volunteered for the charity for 40 years, chairing the Guildford fundraising group. She got involved after helping her friend Maureen Lemin organise a raffle, runs bucket collections, quiz nights... - [From volunteering to a job](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/volunteer-stories/amy-lowe-volunteering-opened-a-massive-door-in-my-life): Amy Lowe began volunteering at the charity's Manchester Piccadilly shop to build her confidence and improve her mental health, found she loved the variety of the work, and later moved into a paid role. Included because it documents something charity retail does that rarely gets counted: the shops ar... - [Volunteer stories](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/volunteer/volunteer-stories): The index the previous two accounts come from, and worth browsing rather than reading. It is the thing this charity publishes that many do not: named volunteers saying in their own words why they turn up. Among them Kel Hughes, who volunteered in the Teddington shop, enjoyed the atmosphere, applied... - [RevivR: learn CPR in 15 minutes](https://revivr.bhf.org.uk/): The free interactive course, and the single most consequential link in this experience. About fifteen minutes on a phone or tablet, practising chest compressions on a cushion, with feedback and a mock 999 call, ending in a certificate. Built for adult CPR. The charity's figures for why: over 40,000... - [Train your organisation in CPR](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr/learn-cpr-in-15-minutes/train-your-organisation-in-cpr): The version for workplaces, clubs and community groups, so a whole team learns at once. The honest reason to use it: individual good intentions decay, and a workplace that has trained everybody has changed the odds in that building permanently. - [DefibFinder: find your nearest defibrillator](https://www.defibfinder.uk/): The public face of The Circuit: a searchable map of registered defibrillators. Two minutes well spent now rather than in an emergency — look up your street, your workplace and wherever you exercise, and notice whether there is anything near you at all. - [Research funding across the UK](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/research-funding-across-the-uk-visualisations): Interactive maps of where the charity's research and clinical trials are funded, which answers a question donors genuinely ask and charities rarely answer well: is any of this happening near me. Worth a browse in the spending chapter because it makes £103m geographically real. - [Search funded research projects](https://www.bhf.org.uk/research-projects): The directory of individual funded projects, searchable. The most direct available answer to what did the money actually buy, and the right tool for anyone who wants to check a claim rather than accept one. - [Find a shop near you](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/find-bhf-near-you): The charity's location finder, covering clothing shops, books and music shops, furniture and electrical stores, pop-ups and CPR training locations. Use it before a trip: furniture and electricals are only taken at some sites, which saves a wasted journey with a full car. - [Search volunteering opportunities](https://myvolunteer.bhf.org.uk/event/list): The charity's own volunteer portal, searchable by role and event type. Scroll it for two minutes and the scale of unpaid work behind a national charity becomes concrete in a way no annual report conveys. - [The donation form](https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate/your-donation): The charity's official donation page, handling one-off and regular gifts by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal or Direct Debit. This is the real page, checked rather than reconstructed. If you take one action from this experience the charity would want it to be this; if you would rather it were the... - [UK cardiovascular disease factsheet](https://www.bhf.org.uk/-/media/files/for-professionals/research/heart-statistics/bhf-cvd-statistics-uk-factsheet-jul26.pdf): The twice-yearly factsheet of key UK cardiovascular and risk-factor statistics, in the July 2026 edition. This is the document to cite, with its date, rather than any figure repeated second-hand. Deliberately linked rather than summarised here: a statistic lifted out of a dated factsheet and quoted... - [Annual report and accounts](https://www.bhf.org.uk/-/media/files/british_heart_foundation_annual_report.pdf?rev=f5a0f7e6cbc84cbb8b597f14953a397c): The full audited report as published. Every financial figure in this experience traces here — income, spend, reserves, governance, the auditor's opinion, and the detail of the retail operation that the summary pages compress into one line. Long, and the most checkable item here. - [Sixty years of research and innovation](): The charity's own retrospective of its first sixty years of funding, as a single document. Read it for the shape of the thing rather than the claims: cardiovascular medicine improved enormously over that period through many funders at once, and a sixty-year summary from one of them is a useful accou... - [Research impact reports](https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/research-successes/our-research-impact-reports): The charity's own impact reporting, which is the appropriate place to end a chapter about attribution. Read it as the organisation's self-assessment, clearly labelled as such — which is exactly how it is published, and more than many charities offer. - [The BHF's own video channel](https://www.youtube.com/@BritishHeartFoundation): The charity's YouTube channel, included because some of what the BHF does best is short explanatory video. Cited as a channel rather than a search, and useful for seeing the register the charity uses with the public, which is noticeably plainer than its research or corporate material. Everything in... - [Heart attack vs cardiac arrest: what's the difference?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkohnIY93HY): The single most useful addition to this experience. The distinction between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest is the thing this chapter exists to establish, it is the thing the public most reliably gets wrong, and it determines what a bystander should actually do. The BHF has made a short video ex... - [Heart attack symptoms to look out for](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppP6rGIfWf0): The companion video on symptoms, and worth watching alongside the written guidance rather than instead of it. Video is better than text for one specific thing here: it conveys that symptoms are often less dramatic than the clutching-the-chest image people carry, which is the misconception that costs... - [Your top heart palpitations questions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_Qf47z5Pw): Included because palpitations are among the most common reasons people worry about their heart, and among the least well served by general symptom material — most of which is about heart attacks. The video takes the questions the charity is actually asked. Included as an example of a charity answeri... - [Statins, explained by the charity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_h9gtDsqc): Statins are the most prescribed and most argued-about cardiovascular medication in Britain, and a patient organisation's explanation of them is a useful third register alongside clinical guidance and press coverage. Watch it alongside the independent reference material in this chapter, and take any... - [What does menopause mean for your heart health?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvpkaxzvyiI): Added deliberately because it covers a risk factor that general cardiovascular material has historically handled badly. Cardiovascular disease has long been culturally coded as a male problem, with the consequence that women's risk is under-recognised by patients and sometimes by clinicians, and the... - [Resuscitation Council UK's channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/ResusCouncilUK): An independent counterweight on the subject where independence matters most. The Resuscitation Council UK is the body that sets the resuscitation guidelines used across the NHS, and it is not the BHF — so where the two agree on CPR technique, that agreement is worth more than either saying it alone.... - [Heart valve replacement: tissue heart valve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_pvMkhEXE): A procedure explainer, included in the research and impact chapter because it shows what the research pipeline eventually produces: a routine intervention that a patient will be offered and will have to decide about. Research chapters tend to stop at the discovery; a patient encounters it as a conve... - [The London to Brighton off-road bike ride](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYJL8o8fBFE): One of the charity's named mass-participation events, shown rather than described. Worth a minute for anyone evaluating the charity as a partner or considering taking part: the events chapter lists what exists, and the video shows what the day actually looks like, which is the thing that determines... - [A corporate partnership, in practice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU3LyckqZkI): A video of a corporate fundraising activity with a named commercial partner, included because corporate partnership is abstract until you see what one actually consists of. For anyone assessing the charity as a partner, this is more informative than a partnerships page: it shows the format, the tone... - [A branch honoured for its contribution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiM4e43a6KY): The charity's 2026 outstanding contribution award for its Carterton branch, included in the shops and local fundraising chapter because branch volunteers are the mechanism this part of the charity actually runs on. The award videos are short and specific, and they name real people and real places —... - [Volunteer of the Year Awards 2026](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7_ffTixemk): The charity's own volunteer awards, and the entry point to the four named-volunteer videos that follow. Included because the most persuasive thing about volunteering for an organisation is usually the people already doing it. Official BHF video, verified identifier, title as published. - [Valerie McIlveen, Northern Ireland](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGbm15BDcnQ): A named volunteer honoured in the charity's 2026 outstanding contribution awards for Northern Ireland. Included with her name because the charity published it with her name and because the alternative — describing an anonymous volunteer — would be weaker and less respectful. Short, specific, and a b... - [Bill and Margaret Black, Scotland](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyZv-0rug9A): The Scottish outstanding contribution award for 2026, given to a couple. Worth noticing as a pattern across these four videos: long-service charity volunteering is frequently done by couples and by families rather than by individuals, which is a real feature of how this kind of organisation sustains... - [The Mariani Family, Cymru Wales](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCCQ1HlsQX8): The Welsh award for 2026, given to a family — which completes the four-nation set alongside England, Northern Ireland and Scotland and makes a small structural point about the charity: it awards separately across the four nations, which is a choice about how a UK-wide organisation recognises local e... - [The British Heart Foundation, described independently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Heart_Foundation): The encyclopaedia article on the charity, included because most other accounts of the BHF here are written by the BHF. An independently maintained description gives you the founding date, the structure, the scale and the criticisms in one place, with citations you can follow. Where it differs in emp... - [Cardiac arrest, as a clinical entity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_arrest): The independent reference on cardiac arrest — what it is, what causes it, what the survival rates actually are and how they vary by whether the arrest was witnessed and whether bystander CPR was given. Read it after the BHF video in this chapter: the video establishes the distinction clearly and qui... - [Myocardial infarction, as a clinical entity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myocardial_infarction): The other half of the distinction, independently described: a heart attack is a blockage of blood supply to heart muscle, and the person is usually conscious. Having both articles alongside the charity's own material is the cleanest way to be certain you have the distinction right, because the two c... - [Statins, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statin): The independent article on the drug class, added as a counterweight to both the charity's explainer and the louder public argument about statins. It covers the evidence base, the debate about side effects and the disagreements about prescribing thresholds — which is a more complete picture than eith... - [NICE guidance on cardiovascular conditions](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/conditions-and-diseases/cardiovascular-conditions): The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is the body whose guidance actually determines what the NHS offers, which makes it a different and in some ways more consequential source than either a charity or an encyclopaedia. If you want to know what treatment you should expect to be offere... - [Cardiovascular disease, in global data](https://ourworldindata.org/cardiovascular-diseases): Added to give the scale chapter a source that is neither the charity nor a national statistics office. Our World in Data presents cardiovascular mortality and risk-factor data by country and over time, with the underlying datasets downloadable and the sources cited. The useful thing it provides that... - [ONS mortality statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths): The official UK source for deaths by cause, added so that any mortality figure quoted by any charity in this field can be checked against the national statistical authority that produces the underlying numbers. A charity's framing of a statistic is a choice; the statistic itself is here. Independent... - [Resuscitation Council UK: how to do CPR](https://www.resus.org.uk/public-resource/how-do-cpr): The independent authority's own public guidance on CPR, and the most important addition to this chapter. The Resuscitation Council UK sets the resuscitation guidelines used across the NHS. Where its technique guidance and the BHF's agree, you can be confident the advice is settled rather than one or... - [CPR, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation): The encyclopaedia article, which adds something neither charity provides: the history of the technique, how the guidance has changed over time, and the evidence behind the current compression-focused approach. Knowing that the advice has changed — and why — is useful, because a reader who learned CP... - [The chain of survival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_survival): The concept that organises everything in this chapter and the next, and it is not a BHF concept — it is the standard resuscitation framework. Survival after a cardiac arrest depends on a sequence of links: early recognition and calling for help, early CPR, early defibrillation, and post-resuscitatio... - [The 2025 UK resuscitation guidelines](https://www.resus.org.uk/professional-library/2025-resuscitation-guidelines): The actual guidelines, for anyone who wants the primary document rather than a summary of it — clinicians, first-aid trainers, workplace responsible persons, or anyone who needs to know what the current standard of care formally is. Published by the Resuscitation Council UK and independent of any ch... - [Resuscitation Council UK on defibrillation](https://www.resus.org.uk/public-resource/defibrillation): The independent authority's public guidance on defibrillators, added alongside the charity's. The point worth taking from it, and it is the single most important thing in this chapter: a public access defibrillator is designed to be used by someone with no training, it will not deliver a shock unles... - [Automated external defibrillators, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_external_defibrillator): The reference article on the devices themselves — how they work, how they decide whether to shock, their deployment history and the evidence on public access programmes. Read alongside the Council's guidance and the charity's map. Useful particularly for anyone responsible for deciding whether an or... - [Resuscitation Council UK guidance for defibrillator owners](https://www.resus.org.uk/additional-guidance/guidance-defibrillators): The practical document for organisations rather than bystanders: what is involved in owning, siting, registering and maintaining a defibrillator. It answers the question a school, church, gym or employer actually faces: who is responsible for the device once it is on the wall. Independent of the BHF... - [Cardiomyopathy UK](https://www.cardiomyopathy.org/): A second, independent cardiac charity, added to the funding chapter to make a structural point the BHF's own pages cannot: the BHF is the largest cardiovascular charity in Britain but it is not the only one, and smaller condition-specific organisations occupy space it does not. Anyone assessing wher... - [Cardiac Risk in the Young](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/): A third independent charity, and the one with the most genuinely different emphasis. CRY works specifically on young sudden cardiac death — awareness, screening, research and supporting bereaved families. Its existence and its priorities are the clearest available evidence that cardiovascular charit... - [Heart failure, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_failure): Added to the research chapter because heart failure is where a large share of cardiovascular research funding goes and because the term is widely misunderstood — it does not mean the heart has stopped, it means it is not pumping as well as it should, and it is a chronic condition people live with fo... - [The European Society of Cardiology](https://www.escardio.org/): The professional body for cardiology across Europe, which publishes the clinical guidelines most European cardiologists work to. Added as an independent professional-community source: it shows what the specialty itself prioritises, which is not always what a national patient charity prioritises, and... - [Cardiomyopathy, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiomyopathy): The condition at the centre of the charity's largest research programme, described independently of the programme. Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle itself, frequently genetic, and often the cause when an apparently healthy young person dies suddenly. Reading the independent article be... - [Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy specifically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrophic_cardiomyopathy): The most common inherited heart condition and the specific form most associated with sudden death in young athletes. It is also the condition that connects the research chapter to the screening argument in the policy chapter and to the bereavement accounts in chapter sixteen, several of which concer... - [Atrial fibrillation, independently described](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrial_fibrillation): The most common sustained heart rhythm disturbance, a major cause of stroke, and frequently symptomless — which is why it appears in a chapter about trials and impact. It is one of the clearest cases where detection rather than treatment is the bottleneck, and therefore one of the clearest tests of... - [Myocarditis, from a condition-specific charity](https://www.cardiomyopathy.org/about-cardiomyopathy/related-disorders/myocarditis): An independent charity's clinical information on myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — included because it is a condition that received a great deal of public attention and a great deal of misinformation in recent years, and because a specialist patient organisation's page is a better sou... - [CRY on national screening policy](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/cry-responds-to-the-national-screening-committee-opening-consultation-on-screening-for-cardiac-conditions-associated-with-sudden-cardiac-death/): A genuine policy disagreement in the sector, and the most useful thing in this chapter. Cardiac Risk in the Young argues for cardiac screening of young people and has responded formally to the UK National Screening Committee's consultation on screening for conditions associated with sudden cardiac d... - [The evidence CRY cites for screening](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/largest-ever-study-of-cardiac-screening-in-young-people-shows-heart-checks-save-lives/): The research CRY puts behind its position: its own account of what it describes as the largest study of cardiac screening in young people. Linked so the argument can be assessed rather than taken on either side's word, and labelled for what it is — a charity's presentation of research supporting tha... - [CRY's screening programme in practice](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/screening): What the advocacy actually delivers: CRY runs subsidised cardiac screening events for young people. Included because it closes the loop between a policy position and a service, which is the test of whether a campaigning organisation is doing more than campaigning. If a close relative died suddenly a... - [CRY's My Story archive — content note](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/my-story/): A content note first, because this material is heavier than anything else in this experience. Cardiac Risk in the Young hosts an archive of accounts of young sudden cardiac death, written and submitted by bereaved families and partners, organised by the writer's relationship to the person who died —... - [Darren Crawford, on Michelle McFeely](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/michelle-mcfeely-mystory/): Darren Crawford's published account of the death of his girlfriend, Michelle McFeely, of Coleraine, aged 30, for which a post mortem found no cause. Linked rather than retold, because the words belong to him. Published by CRY under his name, and included because an account in which nothing is explai... - [Craig Salmon](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/craig-salmon-mystory/): A further account from CRY's archive, linked under the name the charity publishes it with and deliberately left uncharacterised: one example of what the archive holds is enough, and summarising every entry would turn individual accounts into a catalogue. The archive index is there if you want to cho... - [Hannah Taylor](https://www.c-r-y.org.uk/hannah-taylor-mystory/): A further account from CRY's archive, linked under the name the charity publishes it with and deliberately left uncharacterised for the same reason. Listed separately rather than bundled because a person's account is not a supporting detail of another person's account, and giving each its own entry... - [myheart — young people living with a diagnosis](http://www.myheart.org.uk/): CRY's network for young people who have been diagnosed with a cardiac condition, as distinct from the bereavement archive. Included because the two halves of this subject are genuinely different: being diagnosed young with a heart condition you will live with for decades is not the same experience a... - [The peer community: 71,245 members](https://healthunlocked.com/bhf): The most substantive source of other people's words in this experience, and a different kind of evidence entirely. The BHF's community on HealthUnlocked had 71,245 members and 41,341 posts as of 30 October 2026. What it contains is not curated case studies but people mid-problem, asking each other:... - [Support after a cardiac arrest](https://www.resus.org.uk/public-resource/support-after-cardiac-arrest): The Resuscitation Council UK's resource for survivors and their families, included because what happens to someone after a cardiac arrest gets far less attention than the arrest itself. Surviving a cardiac arrest frequently involves cognitive and psychological consequences that nobody prepares peopl... - [The discharge resource](https://www.resus.org.uk/publications/support-after-cardiac-arrest-discharge-resource): The companion document to the Council's support resource, written to be given to people leaving hospital after a cardiac arrest and to those caring for them. Linked because it is specific and practical rather than motivational, and because a reader who has arrived here after an event in their own fa... ## Attribution Curated by SKEMR. 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