Transforming Heart Failure Outcomes Across the Four Nations
The British Society for Heart Failure is the UK’s expert clinical voice dedicated to driving down preventable deaths, tackling health inequalities and helping to secure high-quality heart failure care across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
We help bridge the gap between clinical excellence and national policy to ensure research innovation, early diagnosis and equitable specialist heart failure care for all.
The case for change
Heart failure is a major driver of NHS budget pressures. Yet it is one of the most preventable causes of emergency hospital admissions.
Early intervention would save lives and resources. Without national action now, we are heading for a significant crisis.
Earlier diagnosis of heart failure could save approximately 10,000 lives each year.
An estimated 400,000 people in the UK may have heart failure without knowing it.
80% of heart failure is diagnosed in hospital following an acute event, despite 40% of these patients having previously presented symptoms in primary care.
More than 1 million people in the UK have diagnosed heart failure, with around 200,000 new diagnoses every year.
Heart failure accounts for 5% of all emergency hospital admissions and costs the NHS approximately £2 billion annually.
Survival following an acute heart failure admission is around 1 in 3 in the year after discharge.
The number of people living with heart failure is projected to grow by 92% by 2040.
Heart failure is more prevalent than the four most common cancers combined.
Cardiovascular disease is the UK's biggest killer, accounting for around a third of lives lost annually.
We are committed to achieving systemic change within heart failure. We encourage the Government, policymakers, healthcare systems and the charity sector to work together to eliminate regional health inequalities and make heart failure a national priority.
Scroll to explore our Five Policy Priorities
Our Policy Priorities
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Earlier diagnosis and treating patients in the community will reduce emergency admissions, reduce stays in hospital, prevent avoidable deaths and reduce NHS costs.
We want to see:
A reduction in late or emergency presentations, which are very common.
Improved UK-wide access to NT-proBNP and Echocardiography.
National metrics to measure the impact of scheduled and emergency pathways.
Targeted education and awareness raising among the public and clinicians to improve the recognition of symptoms.
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Standardising heart failure services across the UK will reduce inequity, improve outcomes, release bed days and help save £100m+ through fewer emergency admissions.
We want to see:
MDT composition, staffing ratios and service standards defined in a BSH Model HF Service Specification.
Protected specialist roles, including HF specialist nurses, pharmacists and community HF specialists.
The introduction of commissioning guidance that addresses workforce and service inequity.
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Optimised therapy reduces hospitalisations, mortality and spending, delivering rapid, high-value returns for the NHS.
We want to see:
Defined national treatment pathways for HFpEF/HFmrEF to improve equity.
Equitable access to disease-modifying therapies, including treatments for obesity-related heart failure.
National audits, GDMT benchmarks, accreditation frameworks and quality improvement to improve equity across the EF range.
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Smarter, integrated pathways increase efficiencies, save budget and improve the experience of heart failure patients
We want to see:
New guidance on biomarker-driven triage and digital decision-support tools.
Minimum national standards for digital and remote HF monitoring across NHS systems.
Support for pilot programmes for AI-enabled risk stratification, diagnostics and phenotyping, with clear clinical governance.
Better use of national data to identify inequity and scale best-practice models.
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Championing leadership in clinical trials, implementation science and service innovation leads to continual improvement across the NHS.
We want to see:
A stronger role of national audit tools to drive improvement, not just reporting.
UK-wide promotion best practice models that improve outcomes.
The alignment of UK heart policy with international standards and innovations.
Work with us to achieve positive change
Select your sector to find out how we can work together and the support available to you:
Government, Parliamentarians & Policymakers — We national & local decision makers to achieve policy change that will improve outcomes.
Health Organisations & Systems — We provide service specifications, diagnostic pathways and frameworks to support system-wide change.
Charity & Third Sector — We collaborate on joint campaigns, awareness resources and educational materials.
Heart failure has far-reaching consequences for patients, healthcare services, society and the economy. These complex and interconnected challenges cannot be solved in isolation. We partner with Government, policymakers, parliamentarians, healthcare systems and charity networks to help deliver UK-wide change.
Our Calls to Action
For policymakers, Government and parliamentarians: We ask policymakers and elected officials to champion heart failure as a strategic NHS priority. We can provide support for debates, speeches, national events, parliamentary questions and APPGs. We ask for heart failure to be a priority focus in national and local healthcare decision making.
For healthcare systems and organisations: We ask for specialist HF workforces and a model HF service to be prioritised in commissioning decisions. We ask for early diagnosis pathways to be embedded in local health and wellbeing strategies to ensure heart failure is a national priority.
For charities and third sector agencies: We ask the charity sector to partner with us on joint policy campaigns, collaborative resources and white papers. Together, we can increase awareness and improve heart failure education.