Alliance for Heart Failure

Did You Know?

• Day-to-day decisions are made by a steering committee.
• Funders are not responsible for any materials produced by the Alliance, which are created independently by its Secretariat.

Call To Action: Transforming heart failure services in the community

In late 2025, during its 10th anniversary year, the Alliance published a report on heart failure in primary care. It calls for local and national leadership to support a cultural shift in primary care to improve early diagnosis and management. The report draws on over five years of work with primary care heart specialists and proposes solutions including better uptake of NT-proBNP testing, expanded screening via pharmacies and Community Diagnostic Centres, and support for medication optimisation in the community. It incorporates case studies, pilot projects, and recent research on access to NT-proBNP testing in CDCs.

Heart Failure: A call to action

Released on 22 February 2021, this report reviews what has changed since the 2016 ‘Focus on Heart Failure’ report and offers ten fresh suggestions for enhancing heart failure care and patient results. It stresses the need for swift action to address the growing number of heart failure cases, a trend worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Heart failure specialists, patient groups, and professional organisations helped shape the report.

National Heart Failure Audit

The National Heart Failure Audit analysing data from 2020 to 2021 identified serious issues with access to echocardiography services, follow-up specialist care, cardiac rehabilitation, and the training of echocardiographers. The Alliance responded that longstanding issues were exacerbated, not caused, by the COVID-19 pandemic. The earlier audit (2017–18), published on 12 September 2019, reported hospital mortality at 10.1% compared to 9.4% previously. The proportion of patients seen by heart failure specialists rose to over 82% (from 80%), and over 88% received an echocardiogram. Rates remained higher for cardiology admissions (92%, down from 96%) and unchanged on general medical wards (84%). Prescription of key disease-modifying medicines increased. The Alliance responded positively but called for urgent action on regional variation in patient services.

National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD)

Published on 22 November 2018, the NCEPOD report recommended improvements in care processes for patients with acute heart failure who died while admitted as an emergency. The Alliance responded that the report reinforces the need for urgent action to improve heart failure services and highlights the important role of heart failure specialist nurses as part of a full multi-disciplinary team in maximising patient outcomes.