NHS Wales has launched a consultation document for a programme of service improvements to reduce the incidence of, and death rate from, heart disease.
The Cardiac Delivery Plan for 2013–16 focuses on prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, care plans and reducing hospital admissions.
The three-month consultation is in line with NHS Wales’ ‘Together For Health’ strategy to promote personalised and integrated healthcare.
Coronary heart disease affects 9% of adults in Wales (and 33% of adults aged over 65), causing 4,700 deaths per year.
The document points to causal factors such as smoking and obesity, but also notes the need for more timely and well-integrated cardiac care.
A major aspect of the proposed strategy is that Local Health Boards will work with social services to develop “a care plan for those with long-term cardiac conditions” to ensure that “care is co-ordinated between community and hospital”, meeting each patient’s “individual treatment and support needs”.
The care plan will be shared with the patient and reviewed on an ongoing basis, with the aim of ensuring that care services “are compliant with national standards and guidelines” and are “safe, sustainable and available as locally as possible”.
The document also states that cardiac services should be provided “increasingly” within primary care.
Three performance measures are proposed: the percentage of patients treated in line with the cardiac disease waiting time target; the number of emergency admissions, readmissions and bed days; and the percentage of patients who have a care plan.
The consultation will close on 26 October 2012.
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