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11 December 2024

Improvements for heart failure patients

A Wolverhampton cardiology team has brought its improvements to national attention, highlighting how it has managed to improve waiting times for suspected heart failure patients.

Wolverhampton cardiology team

Wolverhampton cardiology team

The team from The Heart and Lung Centre at New Cross Hospital attended the British Society of Heart Failure conference in London to share best practice and learn from other healthcare professionals.

Dr Ayisha Khan-Kheil, Consultant Cardiologist and Specialist in Cardiac MRI and Heart Failure, said the team presented work on its physiologist-led heart failure clinic.

This new one stop clinic has improved waiting times and has given patients referred by their GP with an elevated nT pro-BNP (natriuretic peptide), quicker access to clinical assessment, echocardiography and diagnosis. NT pro-BNP is a hormone which is released into the blood stream and can be a sign of suspected heart failure.

Dr Khan-Kheil said: “We have developed a pathway to improve waiting times and assessment of patients referred with an NT pro BNP between 400-2000ng/L.

“Patients can now get access to an echocardiogram and clinical assessment in one appointment, with Jonathan Cook, our specialist Physiologist.

“Patients can then be discharged back to the GP or urgently referred on to other clinical pathways five times more quickly compared to the standard pathway.

“Dr Smrthi Shetty, Cardiology Clinical Fellow, also presented our data on collaborative working in regard to complex patients with renal and cardiac issues and outcomes from our monthly cardio-renal multidisciplinary team, which have been hugely successful and a game changer for our patients.”

Dr Khan-Kheil said the team also took back some learning points.

She said: “We learnt about the importance of tackling obesity and nutrition and behavioural change for our patients with heart failure and effective methods to approach this in a consultation.

“We also learnt about developing Virtual Wards and we are currently piloting our own Virtual Ward for heart failure, which has been pivotal in reducing bed pressures and optimising the management of heart failure patients, in the comfort of their own home.

“We had a fantastic team experience, we were proud to represent The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and come back enthused and passionate about developing our services for our patients.”

ENDS