The Alliance for Heart Failure is running a number of important education campaigns and is continuing to engage with key stakeholders. The success of our work requires support from everyone with an interest in promoting improved care for people with heart failure. Our latest update highlights ways in which you can get involved.

Community Pharmacist campaign 

With the government pushing for more pharmacies to become independent prescribers, the Alliance is engaging with a number of associated organisations to push for greater awareness and education of community pharmacists on how they can work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to treat and monitor heart failure. 

A series of three articles was published on World Pharmacist Day; these are being circulated among Local Pharmacy Committee contacts through our member Education for Health. The Alliance has also secured an editorial feature in Pharmacy Magazine, the country’s biggest specialist magazine for community pharmacists.

Alliance Committee member Preeti Minhas also spoke at the Pharmacy Show, mentioning the Alliance’s present campaign and the role of community pharmacists in easing the burden of the condition. 

Please help share these articles among your networks and in your channels.

British Geriatrics Society 

With new British Heart Foundation research revealing that those aged over 75 are least likely to be diagnosed with heart failure in primary care, the Alliance continues to work on improving understanding of the condition among geriatricians and their support staff. 

The Alliance is working closely with the British Geriatrics Society to educate its members on best practice in the management of heart failure. An article from some of the country’s leading geriatricians will be published in AGENDA, the BGS’s member publication that reaches over 4,500 members.

Heart failure flag in primary care 

Roche Diagnostics has successfully partnered with Clarivate Analytics to introduce a flag for heart failure on electronic health in 4,000 GP practices in England.

A pop up notification in consultation mode will now inform GPs when a patient with a recorded risk factor presents with symptoms associated with heart failure. This will prompt the clinician to request an NT-proBNP test following NICE guidelines.

NHS England and Community Diagnostic Centres meeting 

The Alliance is in touch with Alexandra Pinches, head of CDC Programme at NHSE following a request to understand the extent to which NT-proBNP testing is being used in these centres. She has expressed interest in working with the Alliance to expand the use of this test and a meeting will take place in the autumn.

British Society for Echocardiography workforce report

Two questions concerning the extent to which the BSE recommendations from its latest workforce report have been sent to supportive MPs to be tabled now that parliament has returned after the party conference season.

World Heart Day 2023

For this year’s World Heart Day, our Co-Chair Louise Clayton and GP Jim Moore recorded a podcast discussing optimising heart failure care in primary care.

They reviewed the importance of actively looking for heart failure cases, and discussed NTpro-BNP testing and diagnostic pathways, as well as how primary care staff can optimise heart failure treatments and rehabilitation. Please share among your networks. 

World Heart Day 2023 – Education for Health

LinkedIn page 

The Alliance has set up a new LinkedIn page to expand its voice in the heart failure community. Please follow us here and if possible engage with our content so we expand our reach.