11th June 2012
New scheme improves
care for heart failure patients
A
specialist nurse is taking part in a pilot scheme that aims to improve the care
of heart failure patients and potentially save the NHS millions of pounds.
Chris
Watson, a Heart Failure Specialist Nurse at the Trust, is carrying out one of 12
schemes around the country that enables medication to be given to a patient
intravenously in their homes rather than in hospital.
Patients
with heart failure usually have to spend around 10 to 14 days in hospital while
they are given diuretic medication intravenously to allow the body to drain
built up fluid naturally.
The
pilot is financed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and is being used to
evaluate the success and safety of treating patients in their homes. It will be
run for two years in the Hastings and Rother area.
There
are around 700,000 people in the UK with heart failure and patients
account for five per cent of all emergency medical admissions and two per cent
of the NHS budget is spent on them.
It
is hoped the scheme will reduce the amount of heart failure patients
needing to
attend hospital. This will improve their
experience as they can be treated in their own home, and also save the
hospital money as the patient does not have to come in to be
treated.
Chris
combines being a specialist nurse with a role as senior lecturer with the
University of Brighton’s School of Nursing and Midwifery and is the project
manager.
She
said: “Providing
diuretic medication intravenously in patients’ own homes is so much nicer and
less stressful than doing so in hospital. It improves patients’ quality of life
by reducing some of the distressing symptoms of heart failure.This is a cutting-edge scheme which
follows the national agenda for hospital avoidance and the transfer of care into
the community.”
