User:ColinHallmark/sandbox/Alliance for Heart Failure

The Alliance for Heart Failure is a coalition of charities, patient groups, professional bodies, public sector organisations and corporate members working together to raise the profile of heart failure within the UK Government, the National Health Service, and British media. It was formed in October 2015.

The Alliance for Heart Failure’s mission is to achieve better outcomes for people with heart failure by ensuring timely diagnosis and access to the right care and support.

Membership
Current members of the Alliance for Heart Failure are:


 * Abbott Laboratories
 * Bayer Pharmaceuticals
 * British Association for Nursing in Cardiovascular Care
 * British Society for Echocardiography
 * British Society for Heart Failure
 * Cardiomyopathy UK
 * Cardiovascular Care Partnership UK
 * Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network
 * Medtronic UK
 * National Heart & Lung Institute
 * Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd
 * Pumping Marvellous Foundation
 * Roche Diagnostics Ltd
 * South East Clinical Networks

Organisation
The inaugural Co-Chairs are Angela Graves (Pumping Marvellous Foundation) and Professor Andrew Clark (British Society for Heart Failure). They have a 12 month tenure. Day-to-day decisions are made by a steering committee.

The Alliance for Heart Failure is supported and funded by Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic Limited, Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, and Roche Diagnostics Ltd. Funders are not responsible for any of the materials produced by the Alliance for Heart Failure, which are created independently by the Alliance’s Secretariat.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Heart Disease Inquiry into heart failure
In 2016, the The All Party Parliamentary Group]] (APPG) on Heart Disease, chaired by Stuart Andrew MP, held an inquiry into living with heart failure. Written and oral evidence was provided by patients, healthcare professionals, and commissioners. The Inquiry’s report, Focus on Heart Failure, was published in September 2016 and made ten recommendations for improving heart failure services.

Nine members of the Alliance for Heart Failure were co-opted onto an Advisory Panel for the Inquiry. The panel had ten members in total.

Key heart failure health statistics
1. Heart failure affects 550,000 people in the UK, with many more undiagnosed. Slow diagnosis is a serious issue, compounded because symptoms are similar to other pathologies like COPD. It can take around four months from presenting symptoms to confirmed diagnosis.

2. Heart failure is debilitating and outcomes are poor: 5 year survival rate is worse than breast or prostate cancer ; 30-40% of those diagnosed with heart failure die within the first year.

3. Heart failure is a major cost to the NHS. It is a leading cause of hospital admission in over 65s and is one of five long-term conditions responsible for 75% of unplanned hospital admissions.

4. Costs are growing. Hospital admissions for heart failure are projected to rise by 50% within 25 years due to an ageing population.

5. NICE recommends GPs refer patients suspected of chronic heart failure with a previous myocardial infarction or very high levels of serum natriuretic peptides to a specialist within two weeks. However, one third of GPs (32%) do not have access to the right diagnostic tests.

6. Only 66% of GPs are confident to diagnose heart failure due to left ventricular systolic function, compared to 95% of cardiologists (the primary clinicians responsible for diagnosis).

7. It is recommended that patients with suspected heart failure have ready access to echocardiograms, however, there is an acute shortage of echocardiographers in the UK.

8. The National Heart Failure Audit 2013-14 reveals that:

i. ~80% of patients admitted to hospital with symptoms of heart failure are seen by a heart specialist in some capacity both on first admission and on readmission (indicating that one in five is not receiving specialist input).

ii. ~60% of patients on general medical or other wards were seen by a heart failure specialist (indicating that two in five are not seen by a specialist).

iii. This may have a detrimental impact on outcomes: only 7% of hospital patients treated in cardiology wards died in hospital versus 11% of patients treated on general medical wards and 14% of patients on other wards.

iv. Men are more likely to have input from a heart failure specialist or cardiologist than women.