GPs are being urged to consider the whole care pathway for cardiovascular disease and long-term conditions when commissioning cardiac rehabilitation and chronic heart failure services.
Advice from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) claims commissioners should examine how cardiac rehabilitation services and services for people with chronic heart failure are integrated across health and social care, voluntary and community services.
GPs are being urged to consider the whole care pathway for cardiovascular disease and long-term conditions when commissioning cardiac rehabilitation and chronic heart failure services.
Advice from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) claims commissioners should examine how cardiac rehabilitation services and services for people with chronic heart failure are integrated across health and social care, voluntary and community services.
Cardiac rehabilitation is a structured set of services that aims to help people with coronary heart disease in their physical, psychological and social needs to “resume their optimal functioning in society”.
“The purpose of [the NICE] guides is to ensure that high quality services are commissioned, not only to improve outcomes for people with chronic heart failure and people who need cardiac rehabilitation, but also to enable commissioners, through service redesign, to release or realign resources towards treatments and interventions that add value,” said Dr Hugh McIntyre, Consultant Physician and Chair of the Topic Expert Group, which developed the NICE quality standard for chronic heart failure.
The guides aim to offer an indicative benchmark of activity to help commissioners determine the level of service needed locally.
Within each commissioning guide, an interactive tool is said to provide data for local comparison against the benchmark and resources to “estimate and inform the cost of commissioning intentions”.
The guides do not constitute formal NICE guidance and are intended to be used as tools to aid patient care through effective commissioning.
