Heart valve clinics: an expanding role for the clinical scientist's validation of a framework for competency and certification.

Background: Valvular heart disease (VHD) represents a significant burden on healthcare systems worldwide, necessitating specialised care through multidisciplinary valve clinics. However, there is a lack of a standardised training and certification framework for clinical scientists and specialist physiologists (CSSPs) working within specialist valve clinics (SVCs). This study aimed to design, implement and validate a competency framework dedicated to training and certifying valve CSSPs to enhance patient outcomes and establish standardised care.