Heart Failure team leads national drive to reduce deaths
The Heart Failure Team at North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust is helping to lead the way in a national drive to detect heart failure sooner and reduce deaths as a result.
As part of Heart Failure Awareness week, the team have taken their awareness roadshow to the Trust’s main hospital sites - Stamford and Rutland Hospital, Peterborough City Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital. They have been talking to patients, visitors, staff and other healthcare staff about how to spot signs that their heart is not working as well as it should, so they can get the right medical support as soon as possible.
The Team is proud to be one of seven pilot sites across the UK to be taking part in a British Society for Heart Failure community programme to raise awareness of the subtle early signs of heart failure and educate people on how they can take control of their health to reduce progression of symptoms.
Working with colleagues across the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System, the team successfully bid to be part of the pilot scheme ahead of it being rolled out across the UK in 2025.
Kathy Simmonds, Lead Heart Failure Nurse, said: “Our aim is to improve the health of the local population by picking up signs of undetected heart failure and then offering treatment and support before people become acutely unwell. This supports the British Society for Heart Failure’s goal of reducing deaths from heart failure by 25% in the next 25 years.
“Many people are unaware of what heart failure really means. It sounds quite frightening, but the early signs are things we can treat and manage well. This is a really important campaign that would save 10,000 lives each year across the UK.
“We are really proud to have been chosen to be part of this pilot ahead and it has been great to talk to so many interested people across our hospitals during Heart Failure Awareness Week.”