Alliance for Heart Failure update – Spring 2019:

Welcome to the latest update from the Alliance for Heart Failure. We are making good progress towards achieving the objectives set out in our 2019 plan, with ongoing engagement with stakeholders at a national and regional level and plans underway for major initiatives later in the year.

National Audit Office

Following our meeting with Robert White, Director, Health Value for Money Audit at the NAO in August last year, we have updated him on developments around heart failure. These have included the prominent references to heart failure and cardiac rehabilitation in the NHS Long Term Plan as well as updates on service delivery and patient outcomes published in the National Heart Failure Audit by NICOR and the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) reports.

Health Education England

Having approached Health Education England, a meeting has been arranged with Dr Sanjiv Ahluwalia, Postgraduate Dean at Health Education North Central and East London and the lead for Cardiology, and Professor Berne Ferry, Head of the National School for Healthcare Science to discuss the implications of the NHS Long Term Plan on heart failure resourcing. This is scheduled for the end of May.

Consultations

The Alliance responded to the consultation on NICE indicators, which includes heart failure. Our previous submissions, including to the NICE Consultation on chronic heart failure in adults last year, have resulted in the Alliance’s voice being strongly represented in the resulting guidelines.

Heart Failure Awareness Week

The Alliance supported this year’s Heart Failure Awareness Week through a dedicated social media campaign aimed at highlighting the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group report on heart failure: Focus on Heart Failure. The Alliance Twitter account (@AllianceforHF), which now has over 600 Followers, saw a significant uplift in engagement.

Alliance for Heart Failure website  

We frequently update our website with fresh information, and have now included our 2019 objectives, most recent update, new members, and responses to topical issues. Between January and April 2019, the site attracted almost twice as many visitors compared with the same period last year, including visitors from NICE, national and devolved Government, and Royal Colleges.

Heart Failure roundtable

Plans for a roundtable discussion that will bring together key stakeholders for a discussion on the issues surrounding the delivery of heart failure services are taking shape. The aim is to stage the event in Westminster to coincide and align with the national Fighting Failure campaign (see below).

Fighting Failure campaign

The Fighting Failure campaign, which has been funded by Novartis and created in collaboration with the British Society for Heart Failure, aims to highlight disparities in specialist heart failure care across the UK and shine a light on potential service enhancements with a view to improving patient care.

Launching in the autumn, the campaign will include a media and social media campaign, print advertising, as well as parliamentary meetings and local policy roundtables.  Novartis and the BSH are keen to involve the whole heart failure community in the campaign and the Alliance is pleased to be an official campaign ‘supporter’. If you would like to find out more about the campaign and how your organisation can get involved please contact stephen.richardson@novartis.com

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We hope that you have found this update informative and useful. Please contact the Alliance Secretariat at ahf@3nine.co.uk if you have any questions or suggestions.

Kind regards

Prof Iain B Squire, Joel Rose – Co-chairs, Alliance for Heart Failure