A new strategy for treating acute heart failure has been shown to improve patients’ quality of life, as well as potentially easing pressure on NHS services by reducing patient admissions.

A new approach to monitoring and treating acute heart failure, which could significantly improve patients’ quality of life, has been launched at St George’s Hospital in London and Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales.

Heart failure is a long-term condition where the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly. It tends to get gradually worse over time, but its symptoms can often be controlled with appropriate management.

The change to the heart failure pathway – an innovative approach to treatment plans coupled with frequent patient monitoring and testing – enables clinicians to increase doses of medication early, more quickly, and with frequent safety monitoring. This works to reduce patients’ symptoms and help prevent hospital readmissions, which can ease demand on Emergency Departments and acute care services.

The new treatment strategy, which has been endorsed by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), was adopted from the landmark international ‘STRONG-HF’ trial. This multinational, 1,500 patient clinical trial showed a reduction in a composite measure of mortality rates and hospital readmissions for patients undergoing the new approach to treatment in the six months following discharge from hospital.[1]

St George’s and Morriston are working in partnership with Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland to implement the new and improved approach to treatment. The new treatment strategy will potentially benefit up to 100 patients in the first year of activity at St George’s and 10 per cent of all heart failure patients in the Swansea and Neath Port Talbot areas.

Paul Curtis, the first St George’s patient to be treated according to the new strategy, said: “After my heart attack, and the acute heart failure diagnosis that followed, I knew that it would be a long time before I felt ‘normal’ again. But just weeks after starting my treatment, I began to notice a steady improvement to my energy levels and ability to do physical jobs around the house. Recently, I’ve even been able to go on holiday. I hope that many more people with heart failure are able to be treated on this new pathway so they can recover more quickly too”.

Matthew Sunter, Lead Heart Failure Nurse at St George’s, said: “Heart failure kills as many people as cancer, yet cancer treatments such as chemotherapy start faster. Now, armed with our new knowledge, we’re able to replicate this with heart failure patients, starting them on higher doses of medicines and increasing them much more quickly – in around three weeks, as opposed to several months.

“I’ve been in this role 10 years, and when I started I never imagined we could treat patients in this manner. We’ve come a really long way, and I’m so proud of the work we’ve been doing at St George’s.”

A Roche blood biomarker test, which checks for signals given off by a heart if it is under stress or dysfunctioning, is a key component of the new, innovative treatment strategy.

Katherine Booth, Clinical Market Manager – Cardiac for Roche Diagnostics UK&I, said: “We know this small but significant change to the management of acute heart failure could improve the lives of many patients. We’re delighted to be working with St George’s and Morriston on introducing this improvement, and we hope to partner with more NHS organisations to ensure even more patients can benefit from it.”

Nick Hartshorne-Evans BEM, Founder & CEO – Pumping Marvellous, The Heart Failure Charity, said: “Reducing the significant symptomatic burden and improving health outcomes for individuals diagnosed with heart failure is crucial. The STRONG-HF treatment strategy represents an important system improvement.

“It has the capacity to onboard patients swiftly and ensure they are placed on GDMT (Guideline Directed Medical Therapy) more quickly. It will ensure that patients receive timely treatment, if required, following discharge, improving their health outcomes. I hope this approach is further adopted across the NHS, enabling patients to live better with heart failure.”