Heart Failure – 2020 summary report
The National Heart Failure Audit (NHFA) deals with a specific and crucial phase in the trajectory of patients with Heart Failure (HF). It reports on the characteristics of patients requiring admission to hospital with HF. It describes their in-hospital investigation, treatment, and their access to specialist care, and also deals with discharge planning and the follow-up and treatment which are offered.
Although there have been no new treatments for Acute Heart Failure (AHF) in twenty years, this year’s audit demonstrates that there remains considerable scope for improvement in patient outcomes by focusing on their in-patient and discharge management. The key message derived from this audit is that patient mortality, post-discharge, is highly dependent upon three hospital characteristics:
- Patient care under the Cardiology team;
- Patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) being discharged on all three disease-modifying drugs; and
- Patients having cardiology follow-up.
The audit presents a number of achievements in the 2018/19 cycle:
- ECGs are at an impressive 99%.
- Hospitals are not selecting patients with milder disease.
- Mortality is down despite an increasingly ageing population.
You can read the report by clicking on the link below.
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