Our Mission

Our mission is to ensure that patients with cardiac devices have the same access to MRI scanning as everyone else.

“You have the right to receive care and treatment that is appropriate to you”

“You have the right to expect your NHS to assess and to put in place the services to

meet those needs as considered necessary”

– The NHS Constitution

You can find out what we do here and why we are doing this here.

Our campaign is grateful for the support of doctors, patients, and hospitals and medical societies. Get involved by either telling us about your hospital, using our resources, or anything else.

MRI for device patients webinar series starting Feb to April 2024

The goal of this webinar series is to help cardiology and radiology teams start and grow services. British MRI-Cardiac Device guideline authors will lead five one-hour webinars on how to practically provide the service. This includes walkthrough videos as if you are the scanner side, artefact reduction, how to monitor scans, tips for programming devices and guidelines for MR Unlabelled devices.

Download flyer here.

Five one-hour evening webinars: 

  • Seminar 1 – 26th February 18:00hrs
    • MRI in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices
  • Seminar 2 – 11th March 18:00hrs
    • Review of cardiac implantable electronic devices for non-cardiologists
  • Seminar 3 – 25th March 18:00hrs
    • Device programming for MRI (including MR unlabelled devices) 
  • Seminar 4 – 8th April 2024 18:00hrs
    • Tips and tricks to reduce artefact: Cardiac MR for device patients
  • Seminar 5 – 22nd April 18:00hrs
    • Patient workflow and tips for cardiac device MRI: A multi-centre experience

Register here: https://cvent.me/yKZEOo or contact Anish.bhuva@nhs.net or EducationalEvents@abbott.com

Thanks to Abbott for supporting the free registrations, and to the British Heart Foundation for ongoing support.

Videos and leaflets now online

Making MRI available for patients with cardiac devices: why we have created patient and clinician educational videos and leaflets

Patient education leaflet

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to diagnose a wide range of illnesses. Like everyone, many people with cardiac devices (pacemakers, defibrillators or implantable cardiac monitors) may benefit from an MRI scan at some point. Technology has changed in the last decade so MRI is technically possible when it is needed, yet patients still face difficulty with access to MRI. This leads to delays in the diagnosis and treatment of many conditions that rely on MRI such as cancer, stroke and brain surgery. The “MRI my Pacemaker” campaign was set up to ensure that patients with cardiac devices have the same access to MRI as everyone else.

What do I need to know about MRI and my pacemaker?

The campaign has worked with the support of the British Heart Foundation and British Society of Heart Failure to develop educational videos and leaflets. Because referrers are far less likely to refer a patient with a cardiac device for MRI than other patients, we have developed an educational video for clinicians to raise awareness. The campaign is also regularly contacted by patients looking for MRI services (both in the UK and abroad). As patients are their own best advocate, we have developed resources to provide support to patients at the time of an implant or if an MRI is being considered.

How do I refer a patient for MRI if they have a cardiac device?

The topic is complex– the MRI process requires imaging and heart specialists and of course patients to work together. Seven professional societies and three patient charities have therefore developed the content. The resources are intended for half a million people in the UK who have a cardiac device, and all clinicians referring to and performing MRI. Because patients with cardiac devices attend at least annually for a device check, the leaflet will be distributed to patients in cardiac physiology clinics at routine attendances, at the time of implantation, and through patient charities. Print and photocopy leaflet versions have been designed.

We are grateful to the following patient groups and charities for their input:

Arrhythmia Alliance, Cardiomyopathy UK and Barts Charity.

The National UK Device-MRI Working Group and the following national professional societies have all contributed to the content or supported the work:

We are grateful to the British Heart Foundation for funding the resources.
Online videos can be found here:

Patient educational video

Referrer educational video

A dedicated MRI referrals platform for pacemaker patients

We want to share our dedicated cloud-based referrals platform that uses intelligent logic to simplify service complexity, and enable quicker access to better care.

Hospitals do not provide MRI services because it is logistically challenging – it needs experts in both MRI and the heart to work together, who do not normally. It is resource intensive to prevent rare but serious complications, and hospitals lack confidence because of the level of technical knowledge required.

Reasons for not setting an MRI service for cardiac device patients. From Sabzevari et al, EuroPace 2014

Traditionally referrals are made linearly but require simultaneous coordination between multiple individuals, many emails and delays of months.

Because the digital infrastructure is designed directly by the end clinical users, the intelligent logic can manage complex decisions with the necessary safety assurance that usually takes multiple clinicians many weeks.

The British Heart Foundation is supporting deployment initially at Barts Health NHS Trust, the fourth largest NHS Trust in the country and is now being tested at five other pilot sites and the rest of the country.

If you are a clinician and want to set up a service, or save time to scale MRI volume – get in touch.

Registered referrals network – an update

We are please to announce that now 60 centres in the UK have registered as part of our referrals network.

Every few weeks, MRI My Pacemaker links patients with MRI centres either in the UK or USA. We do our best to support all patients because these are often for suspected cancer diagnosis and therapy or to investigate neurological disorders.

We encourage all centres to register their services here, to ensure patients are not unnecessarily denied access to MRI scans.

Patient education leaflets

Updating information and guidance.

We find we are often contacted by patients looking for MRI services (both in the UK and abroad). We have decided to develop educational videos and leaflets using an award-winning developer to raise referrer awareness. Because patients are their own best advocate, we hope this will empower patients to initiate contact with MRI services and share their records online.

How do we ensure that we can update every one of half a million people in the UK with cardiac devices? We will make the leaflet available in physiology clinics which patients attend at least annually for a device check.

We are spending a lot of time getting the content right due to the complexity of the topic – it requires imaging and heart specialists and of course patients. We are grateful to the following for their input:

Arrhythmia Alliance, Cardiomyopathy UK and Barts Charity patients for identifying the topics and making sure the wording is pitched correctly.

The National Device-MRI Working Group and the following national societies are ensuring the content and advice is accurate:

Addendum Unfortunately covid-19 will likely mean that we will rely more on remote device monitoring rather than in-person checks. We will still make sure leaflets are distributed to patients at the time of implant (working with the British Heart Rhythm Society and British society of Heart Failure) and through patient charities.