25th September 2024

Heart Failure: Awareness and Education

Rachael Gavin | Advanced Clinical Practitioner within Community Cardiology

On World Heart Day 2024, we are raising awareness of heart failure and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment in dramatically improving outcomes for patients living with heart failure. I am an Associate Lecturer with Education for Health, delivering both Level 6 and Level 7 heart failure modules and masterclasses. I’ve been working in Cardiology and Heart Failure for over 20 years and am currently an Advanced Clinical Practitioner within Community Cardiology.

Over the course of my professional practice, I’ve seen modern medicine make huge strides in advancing treatments available for patients living with heart failure. Despite this, delays in diagnosis and treatment remain, which have a direct impact on prognosis. Conversely, we’ve also seen the huge positive impact that access to specialist heart failure therapies—including ‘The 4 Pillars’ for patients with Heart Failure reduced Ejection Fraction and SGLT2 inhibitors for Heart Failure preserved Ejection Fraction—has on patients’ quality of life and outcomes when living with heart failure.

Heart failure is a complex clinical syndrome, resulting in typical signs and symptoms such as breathlessness, peripheral oedema, fatigue, and pulmonary congestion. The condition is caused by structural and/or functional abnormalities leading to raised pressures or inadequate cardiac output (NICE, 2024).

Over 1 million people in the UK have heart failure, with 200,000 new diagnoses every year (BHF, 2024). However, as per a recent report (Pumping Marvellous, 2021), the pathway to diagnosis can be prolonged. This leads to delays in treatment, complications, avoidable admissions to hospital, a higher symptom burden, and a poorer prognosis. Unfortunately, 80% of patients are diagnosed during a hospital admission, despite 40% of those patients presenting with signs and symptoms of heart failure before admission (NICE, 2021). This supports the estimation that approximately 400,000 more people are living with undiagnosed heart failure.

This can be improved by raising awareness and education among healthcare professionals in the wider healthcare community who care for patients presenting with suspected signs and symptoms of heart failure.

Last year, the British Society for Heart Failure (BSH) launched its 25in25 campaign, with the goal of improving population health by detecting undetected heart failure and reducing heart failure deaths by 25% in the next 25 years. This would mean five fewer deaths for every 100 people newly diagnosed with heart failure, saving 10,000 lives annually (BSH, 2024).

The prevalence of heart failure is set to double by 2040. It’s therefore vital to educate healthcare professionals who encounter people presenting with signs and symptoms of heart failure. This education is key to supporting the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of heart failure, which both benefits patients’ and healthcare professionals’ confidence in managing heart failure with the support of wider specialist teams.