Bury Heart Failure education session
The first in a series of heart failure education sessions was held in Bury recently as part of the GM-HFIT heart failure management programme currently being run in collaboration with Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Invited GPs and practice nurses from the local area engaged in an interactive educational session on topics highly relevant to the management of heart failure in primary care such as B-type Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) assessment, pharmacological management, non pharmacological management and palliative care.
The GM-HFIT programme in Bury follows on from the success of the programme in NHS Manchester and aims to increase awareness of heart failure and improve the skills of primary care clinicians to enable them to provide high quality care for their heart failure patients. The programme involves a combination of clinical audit, specialist heart failure education, IT template design and standardisation of clinical coding systems and has been developed using the PDSA methodology to create a discrete process involving multi-professional teams which bridge between primary and secondary care divide.
The recent education session, which is a fundamental component of the GM-HFIT programme, was chaired by CLAHRC Heart Failure Specialist Nurse Kieley Wild and delivered by local heart failure nurses Bernadette Spanner and Jane Boardman. In addition to providing formal education, the session also provided an opportunity for GPs and practice nurses to discuss specific clinical cases and develop closer working relationships with the local heart failure specialist nurses.
Christi Deaton, Clinical Lead for the project, said: “Evidence-based management of heart failure patients, including optimising medication regimens, multi-disciplinary teams, ongoing surveillance for deterioration, support for self-management and coordination across services can improve patient well-being and reduce hospitalisation. Most patient management will occur in primary care, so GPs and practice nurses need to be skilled in assessing and managing heart failure, and to have close collaboration with specialist services for appropriate referral and advice when needed. The GM-HFIT programme works to increase knowledge, skills, and systems for heart failure in primary care, and facilitating collaboration with specialist services. It’s great to see the response from both groups in working to improve care for patients.”
Date Published: 27/07/2012