My friend Charles Ilsley, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 74, was a cardiologist and a pioneer in the field of angioplasty – arteries widen to allow blood to flow more freely to the heart. As clinical director at Harefield Hospital in the London Borough of Hillingdon, he developed a 24-hour primary angioplasty service for the treatment of heart attack patients.
After studying medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, London (1968-73), Charles worked as a registrar for Stanley Peart who suggested he go into cardiology. At that time, interventional cardiology was in its infancy. In 1977 he first went to Harefield as a registrar in cardiology, then moved to the National Heart Hospital for a period of research with Tony Rickardswho in 1980, assisted by Charles, performed the first balloon angioplasty in London.
This was followed by a consultation at Dunedin Hospital in New Zealand (1983-87), where the cardiology unit pioneered the innovative approach of treating heart attacks directly with angioplasty. Patient outcomes were exceptionally good and when Charles returned to Harefield as a consultant in 1987 he did excellent work using angioplasty. In the 1990s, internal NHS politics dogged much of his time as the hospital was earmarked for closure. It survived largely because of the evidence of lives saved by angioplasty—perhaps its greatest achievement.
Charles became clinical director at Harefield in 2008 but maintained a significant clinical workload – in that year alone he performed 573 catheter procedures. He was a strong advocate of primary angioplasty. He demonstrated that this procedure could be as fast as thrombolysis (using clot-busting agents). However, the reason for its adoption was the much shorter inpatient time (three days for angioplasty compared to up to 14 days for thrombolysis).
Born in Gosport, Hampshire, to Minnie (née Rushbrook), a shop assistant, and Charles Ilsley, a postman at Haslar Hospital, at the age of 11 Charles won a local education authority grant to go to Churcher’s college, Petersfield, to go, where he and I first met as new boys in 1961. For both of us, being at boarding school was a new and somewhat scary experience, at least at first. Later, Charles often said that the escape to boarding school was his doing – as well as taking him away from poverty at home, it brought hope and opportunity.
In 1969, while at St Mary’s Hospital, he met Anne Rogers, a nurse, and they married in 1972. The marriage ended in divorce in 2012. In 2013 he married Helen Binns, a consultant cardiologist, and they moved to Everdon, in Northamptonshire. , where they lived with their springer spaniels.
Charles is survived by Helen, and by his daughter, Kate, and his son, Richard, from his first marriage, and his grandchildren, Edward and Florence, and sister, Susan.
