30 May 2024

Dr Sue Pavord started her term as BSH President at the Board meeting during last month’s BSH Annual Scientific Meeting in Liverpool. She has had a long association with the BSH, and our staff and volunteers are very excited to see her lead the BSH for the next two years.

Sue is a Consultant Haematologist at Oxford University Hospitals and an Associate Senior Lecturer in Medicine at Oxford University. Her fields of interest are wide-ranging and include obstetric haematology, anaemia and iron management, haemostasis, thrombosis, immunohaematology and transfusion medicine.

She was Director of the Leicester Haemophilia Comprehensive Care Centre from 2004 to 2014, serving on the UK Haemophilia Centre Doctors’ Organisation and Blood Sciences Clinical Reference Group during this time, and together with Dr Patrick Mensah, ran haemostasis and thrombosis for a 2,000-bed NHS hospital trust.

In 1998, in her concern for women’s health during pregnancy, she established one of the first combined multidisciplinary clinics with obstetricians and allied health professionals. That led her to further research and education in the field.

Together with Beverley Hunt, she established and chaired the BSH Obstetric Special Interest Group from 2001 to 2021, providing much-needed education and networking within this field. They developed Obstetric Haematology as a formal subspecialty, aiming to improve outcomes for mothers and babies.

As an advocate for population health and wellbeing, Sue promotes the identification and management of iron deficiency. She has established several initiatives towards this goal, including the first medically-led iron deficiency management service and discipline-specific policies to avoid inappropriate blood transfusion.

Sue also believes in equality of health care, having experienced the breadth of haematology during her time in Leicester, a city so rich in diversity. She has taken this forward with international education, including teaching in several African countries. The latter has particularly focussed on population healthcare with judicious use of scarce resources, an example being patient blood management, including prevention and control of post-partum haemorrhage, and management of iron deficiency in which she had some input into the World Health Organization.

During the COVID pandemic, Sue led consensus guidelines which revolutionised the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia for the safety of patients. She also chaired and co-founded the UK Expert Haematology Panel to define the clinical features of vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) and support clinicians managing suspected patients. Through tireless, multifaceted efforts, morbidity and mortality were reduced, and further cases were prevented.

Sue has led and participated in several BSH guidelines. She also sat on the Board as an Ordinary Trustee. During her time as Vice President, she was a Trustee link on the Nominations, Governance and Awards Committee. She represented the BSH on the Royal College of Physicians Medical Specialties Board.

Sue has been key in developing the new BSH strategy for 2024-2026, and we look forward to supporting her in delivering on all four strategic aims: Membership Support and Engagement, Knowledge Sharing, Advocacy and Partnerships, and Advancing the Society.

In the coming months, we’ll share more about Sue and what she hopes to achieve for the BSH. Look out for Sue’s first Presidential message at the end of this week, and if you wish to contact her on anything BSH-related, please email [email protected].