Update #17 Winter 2022/23

The recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic continues to dominate the NHS. Despite this, the Alliance has continued to pursue the recommendations from its Call to Action report. This has seen a focus on NT-proBNP uptake in primary care, the echocardiography workforce alongside primary care education around heart failure.

Media outreach – raising awareness of heart failure and its burden

A series of three articles has been published in Practice Nurse magazine on diagnosing and treating heart failure in primary care. These have focused on diagnosis, treatment, and management of symptoms in the community.

Article 1: Diagnosing and monitoring heart failure

Article 2: Diagnosing heart heart failure using the correct pathway

Article 3: Treating heart failure in primary care

In August last year, an article was published in the Daily Express under the title: Expert says reduction in diagnoses ‘extremely worrying’ – symptoms to look out for quoting the Alliance’s response to the NICOR report. The article called on patients to check for common symptoms of heart failure and warned of the likely burden of heart failure on the NHS.

Three educational podcasts aimed at nurses were also produced by Education for Health with Jim Moore and Louise Clayton for World Heart Day.

Parliamentary campaign

A series of parliamentary questions and pursuant questions were tabled by MPs and Peers based on the Call to Action report and stakeholder concerns.

These include:

• The impact of Community Diagnostic Centres (Henry Smith MP)
• Access to primary care for high risk patients (Baroness Masham)
• Measures to support low performing GP practices (Baroness Masham)
• A pursuant question questioning the work being done to tackle early diagnosis and heart failure awareness (Baroness Masham
• A workforce plan for heart failure specialist nurses and access to NT-ProBNP testing in primary care (Steve McCabe)

The Alliance plans to use these answers to justify the need for a National Campaign for Heart Failure this year.

Key Stakeholder engagement

Meeting with the BSE

In June 2022, the Alliance met with Jo Sopala, CEO of the British Society for Echocardiography. The meeting considered the ongoing echocardiographer workforce problem. Members also discussed raising awareness of when an echo referral is appropriate and assisting a wider understanding of interpreting results.

The Alliance and the BSE agreed to support each other’s efforts to educate the primary care workforce.

NICE Consultation on Quality Standard

A consultation on the draft quality standard on Chronic Heart Failure in Adults was published on 18 July 2022. The Alliance broadly supported the statements and rationale of the quality standards. We believe they will see more patients given access to NT-proBNP testing and cardiac rehabilitation.

Recruitment of new members

• We are delighted to welcome the Primary Care Pharmacy Association as a new member of the Alliance

The focus for 2023

The Alliance aims to bring together its different strands of success in 2023 by focusing on a call for a National Heart Failure Awareness campaign. This is the best way to coordinate different stakeholders with parliamentarians and have our concerns addressed with current NHS resources.