Joint working project with the local secondary care heart failure multidisciplinary team. Practice pharmacists working within the Pen-Y-Bont Health GP Federation were upskilled within their prescribing practice to be able to manage heart failure patients. Training sessions and ongoing support was provided by the HF MDT throughout this project.
The aim was to optimise medical therapy in patients with heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction, in their own GP practice, closer to home.
The aim was to ensure patients were on the 4 pillars of HF therapy (Beta blockers, MRA, ACE/ARB/ARNi, SGLT-2), at maximal tolerated doses.
Practice pharmacist clinics were populated utilising two methods, either referrals were accepted from secondary care to manage these patients in their respective GP surgery, or HF registers were audited and those patients not on quadrupole/maximal therapy were brought in for assessment.
The practice pharmacist had weekly contact with the HF MDT. Once fully optimised patients were referred back for their post optimisation ECHO.
All patient contacts, interventions, appointments were coded using a pre-determined set of codes to ensure the project could be fully evaluated.
