Heart failure care is changing, and pharmacy professionals are increasingly well placed to support timely, person-centred medicines optimisation.
Around 900,000 people are living with heart failure in the UK. Heart failure also places a significant burden on the NHS, costing up to £6 billion each year, with hospital admissions increasing by 50 percent over the last 10 years.
Our Heart failure Optimise programme has been developed to help pharmacy professionals increase their knowledge, skills and confidence in supporting people living with heart failure through optimisation of the four pillars of treatment, using a shared decision-making approach.
The programme supports pharmacy professionals to discuss possible barriers to optimising the four pillars of heart failure treatment, identify the key information needed during transfer of care to support safe decisions about restarting heart failure medicines and demonstrate a person-centred approach to optimisation.
You don’t need to be a heart failure specialist to make a difference. The programme is designed to help pharmacy teams build confidence and apply learning directly in everyday practice to improve patient outcomes.
Optimise sessions are designed for small workplace groups, making it easy to learn as a team. After 20 minutes of individual preparation, colleagues join a 40-minute group discussion to reflect on practice, share experiences and plan next steps. This approach supports team learning while maximising impact in a short time frame.
The programme also links with wider priorities, including updated NICE guidance, the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, the Cardiovascular Disease Modern Service Framework and Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) 2026/27, where the focus is shifting from monitoring to medicines optimisation.
Developed with input from people living with heart failure, the programme includes patient experience and signposting to Pumping Marvellous, a patient-led heart failure charity.
If your team is ready to strengthen confidence around the four pillars, this programme offers a practical space to think, discuss and apply learning.
