Developing better outcomes for people affected by heart failure

Last month, clinicians, managers and patient representatives came together to discuss the outcomes that are important when considering care for people who are affected by heart failure.

In 2021, 152,340 people were diagnosed with heart failure across the Midlands*. Most common in older people, it is a long-term condition that tends to gradually get worse, and usually requires medical intervention as well as impacting people’s quality of life.

The Midlands Cardiac Pathway Improvement Programme (CPIP) aims to improve the health and wellbeing of those affected and is keen to define what this would mean in terms of outcomes for people with heart failure, as well as how these could be measured.

The group identified seven outcomes that matter to people with heart failure:

• To maximise quality of life of people with heart failure
• People with heart failure are listened to and decision-making is shared
• People with heart failure can benefit from self-management and self-care
• People with heart failure experience care that is co-ordinated and not disjointed
• Minimising interventions, visits or admissions that do not benefit people with heart failure
• Timely access to high quality evidence-based care

The group also agreed five outcomes that should apply to the population of people with heart failure as a whole:

• Fair (equitable) access to high quality evidence-based care
• Efficient and sustainable use of NHS resources for the population of people with heart failure
• Reducing the mortality rate from heart failure for the people below 75
• Providing timely access to palliative care for people with heart failure who are approaching the end of their life
• Minimising avoidable interventions (including avoidable emergency admissions).

We would like to know what you think of these outcomes and also ask if you have opinions on other outcomes we should consider?

We would also like your views on the measures we should put in place to reflect each of the outcomes. For instance:

• People with heart failure experience care that is co-ordinated and not disjointed: is there any way of measuring this other than using a survey (there are tested survey questions that cover this outcome)?

This information will be incorporated into the Cardiac Pathway Improvement Programme to help develop, and monitor, changes to these planned outcomes.

We would be grateful if you would help by giving us your own views and feedback, but also sharing with people, carers or patient groups living with heart failure.

Please send any feedback you have to jatinder.singh@nhs.net by Friday 16 September. 

*NHS England Population and Person Insight (PaPI) dashboard