Making Best Practice, Every Day Practice
This resource is fully searchable using the search box at the top of the page, or to narrow down your selection using filters click on 'Knowledge hub' in the main navigation.
Here you will find:
More than 500 articles especially written by colleagues to support your care of patients with the cardiovascular diseases commonly seen in primary care.
Articles on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular conditions such as:
…and more.
Simple and informative infographics which will answer questions such as “How do these drugs work?”, “What causes this heart condition?” and much more.
Through the support of NHS Improvement, Guidance on Risk Assessment for Stroke Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation (GRASP-AF) has been rolled out nationally. Nearly 2,000 practices have adopted the GRASP concept, representing an overall population of 13 million.
“There are two objects of medical education: to heal the sick and to advance the science.”
Exercise is a preventive tool in combating cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity: an extra 12 minutes a day could make a big difference.
“The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a medical course but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.”Sir William Osler (1849-1919), from The Student of Medicine.
People with schizophrenia have substantial premature mortality compared to individuals without schizophrenia. They also have a wide range of co-morbidities and multiple physical health conditions but are less likely than people without schizophrenia to have a primary care record of cardiovascular disease. This suggests a systematic underrecognition and under-treatment of cardiovascular disease, which may contribute to the increased mortality seen in this vulnerable patient group.
Since the introduction of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), GPs have been incentivised to keep a register of patients diagnosed with heart failure (HF). Such registers are only effective if they are audited regularly, since they are likely to contain errors and omissions. GRASP-HF is a new tool designed to help busy practices achieve a systematic approach to the identification, diagnosis and management of patients with HF.
For most people symptoms can be controlled by optimal medical management and healthy lifestyle choices. Revascularisation gives symptom relief but is not without risk, and its long-term benefits remain uncertain.
The 2012 ESC guidelines on heart failure, published only two years after the updated NICE guideline, spell out therapeutic advances about which doctors need to be aware. They include recommendations on mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs), ivabradine and cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT).
Drugs don’t work in people who don’t take them. This is a problem that affects 57% of all patients prescribed drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes, according to a recent meta-analysis combining data from more than 370,000 patients.
Heart rate appears to be a marker for optimal medical therapy in heart failure, and a key determinant of hospitalisation. This study compared practices using the local enhanced service (LES) for heart failure against those not delivering the LES. Education and heart rate control seem to influence hospitalisation rates.
Abnormal glucose metabolism in people admitted to hospital experiencing an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) strongly predicts development of type 2 diabetes and future cardiovascular events. This paper describes a prospective nine-month parallel design randomised intervention trial involving people admitted to the Wellington Regional Heart and Lung Unit with ACS and hyperglycaemia.
Sometimes I shock myself with what I do not know. But one of the fantastic things about working as a practice nurse is that there are so many chances to find out something new. We can all learn things from simply talking to patients. When I was starting out, it bothered me (‘the professional’) when a patient knew more than I did. But the patients were so nice—I think they felt sorry for me— that I soon stopped feeling overwhelmed and became interested.
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