Living with Heart Failure in Sussex

One of the key priorities for the Sussex Cardiac Clinical Network this year is developing an Integrated Model of Care for Heart Failure (HF), which addresses known disparities in access to HF services from diagnosis, to management, and end of life care. People living with HF in different areas of Sussex do not have access to care which helps them live well in the community, or supports them after discharge from hospital, and, as a result, can experience worse health outcomes. Taking a similar approach taken for diabetes services in 22/23, they are working with NHS Elect to help co-design longer term solutions with people with lived experience to transform care.

The first phase of this is a survey of people living with HF and their carers to understand their experiences of the services as they are currently configured. Many people living with HF will also be living with other conditions (for instance, in Sussex,  35% of people with HF are also living with diabetes, 77% are hypertensive 23% with cerebrovascular disease (such as stroke) and 21% (with COPD) with prevalence of multiple long term conditions, alongside HF, increasing in areas of greater deprivation.

NHS Elect will also be hosting a number of workshops for a greater depth discussion or 1:1 telephone interviews to hear from a broad range of voices to co-produce a new model of care. All the details can be found within the link below – Improving heart failure services – Sussex Health and Care (ics.nhs.uk)

Survey could be accessed here