Clinical guidance

This page provides links to position statements and posters which highlight the consensus view of the BSE Advisory Council on matters about which members have requested guidance.

Where an evidence base is available, the guidance will reference it. However, often an underpinning reference base is not available and therefore consensus expert opinion is used to reflect best practice. The Advisory Council is made up of clinicians in a wide variety of clinical practice settings to ensure the experience of primary, secondary, and tertiary care experience is reflected in our consensus statements. It is intended that these position statements give our consensus view on how to balance increased efficiency with patient safety and staff satisfaction and are intended as a guide from which to formulate local solutions to local issues.

We also include other useful information which could be relevant to echocardiographers on a national or global basis.

  

BCS Imaging Council statement on cardiac imaging in the community

Posted on 2/8/2024
Updating the 2021 BSE guidance to encapsulate cardiac imaging provision in the community as a whole

  

Position statement: Recommendations for time-slots for echocardiography

Posted on 1/31/2024
A consensus view on minimum timeslots within outpatient echocardiography

  

NHS England Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care

Posted on 11/28/2023
Guidance from NHS England including a retention schedule for patient data such as echocardiography images

  

Position statement: The role profile of echo specialist physiologists

Posted on 9/14/2023
Proposing several potential novel descriptions for the role of an echo specialist cardiac physiologist

  

Position statement: Recommendations for time-slots for echocardiography

Posted on 7/5/2023
A consensus view on minimum timeslots within outpatient echocardiography

  

Position statement: Provision of emergency paediatric TTE by accredited adult TTE echocardiographers

Posted on 3/21/2023
Joint guidance from the British Society of Echocardiography (BSE) and the British Congenital Cardiac Association (BCCA)

  

Position statement: The use of abridged echo protocols in the UK

Posted on 9/22/2022
A consensus view on the use of abridged echo protocols

  

Valve disease assessment poster

Posted on 3/30/2022
Heart valve posters centralise the guidance from the recent BSE guidelines and will provide departments and echocardiographers with a single reference point when diagnosing valve disease severity.

  

Position statement: Recommendations on air clearance in TOE rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Posted on 1/19/2022
A consensus view on provisions for transoesophageal echocardiography

  

Position statement: Echocardiography in 16-17 year olds

Posted on 12/30/2021
A consensus view on the appropriate practice for echocardiography of 16-17 year olds

Note: The COVID-19 information on this page was originally produced to aid interpretation of the best available public information regarding the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic within the context of echocardiography. COVID-19 guidance should be read in conjunction with guidance produced by the UK government and other professional bodies; advice that is likely to change as understanding of COVID-19 evolves.

We regularly consider whether our guidance is still appropriate in the context of COVID-19 and as of June 2021 it is fully up to date.