New Integrated Heart Failure Service launches in East and North Hertfordshire
A new service to help patients living with heart failure in East and North Hertfordshire has been launched, starting in Lower Lea Valley. The service will continue to roll out across East and North Hertfordshire over the coming months.
HCT are leading on the delivery of the service. The Integrated Heart Failure Service (IHFS) has been developed by colleagues across the East and North Hertfordshire Health and Care Partnership, which is made up of ten health, social and voluntary care organisations of which Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) is a partner.
Addressing cardiac conditions is one of the key ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan, and HCT has used its growth funding to make this new service a reality. There are currently more than 4,000 people who are registered with heart failure in East and North Hertfordshire, although the actual figure is estimated to be as high as 7,000.
Rachel Hards, Integrated Heart Failure Service Lead said:
“I am very excited that we are able to launch IHFS. Establishing this project has involved collaborating with a large number of professional groups and individuals within the East and North Hertfordshire organisations and beyond working with our healthcare partners. As a service we are grateful for all their support and the IHFS nursing team is now looking forward to working to improve the lives of patients with heart failure.”
The service will enable patients with heart failure to be monitored closer to home and benefit from earlier identification, diagnosis and management of their condition. It will include patient access (where required) to a consultant cardiologist and specialist heart failure nurses working closely with community nurses, hospices, and primary care colleagues. The specialist nurses will work in the community, with patients being seen in their homes or in a local clinic.
The service will take advantage of the new direct access echocardiogram pathway being offered through the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the new QEII Hospital at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.
Dr Alison Jackson, Clinical Director of Broxbourne Alliance Primary Care Network said:
“Patients with heart failure often present in many different and complex ways – the challenge there is a multidisciplinary approach is often needed with easier access routes into services.
“Experience of managing heart failure within Primary Care Networks, and from what we know about the population health data, shows how effective a heart failure service will be in East and North Hertfordshire.
“This is an opportunity to do things differently by joining up the different skillsets of all providers in a coordinated way, which delivers care closer to home and will hopefully improve patient outcomes.”
