Follow Your Heart

Welcome to the Follow Your Heart ‘Implementation Toolkit’.

This toolkit has been developed to assist primary care healthcare professionals in implementing the Follow Your Heart Guidance.

The Follow Your Heart initiative was established by HEART UK, the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society (PCCS) and Pfizer to help address the need for optimal and equal standards of treatment and care for post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. After conducting research which identified significant regional variation in the use and availability of existing post-MI guidelines across the UK, the Follow Your Heart Group's* expert Steering Committee, comprising healthcare professionals and a patient representative, came together to review existing guidelines and develop best practice guidance for the treatment of post-MI patients.

This guidance was published in the British Journal of Cardiology and is available to download from this website, along with a toolkit to help you implement the guidance in your own locality. The 'Implementation Toolkit' includes:

1. Follow Your Heart research paper and guidance
2. Poster for healthcare professionals
3. Patient education leaflet.
4. Educational presentation for healthcare professionals - Follow      Your Heart: optimal care after a heart attack.
5. Discharge summary template.
6. Suggestions on how to implement Follow Your Heart in your      local area

If you would like to order free hard copies of the patient leaflet or primary care tool, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Follow Your Heart research paper and guidance.

A combined reprint of two peer-reviewed papers developed on behalf of the Follow Your Heart Steering Group and published in the British Journal of Cardiology

Follow Your Heart research paper

Ong S, Milne D, Morrell J. Post-MI clinical guidelines: variation in availability, development, content and implementation across the UK. Br J Cardiol 2009; 16:142-6

The research paper ‘Post-MI clinical guidelines: Variation in availability, development, content and implementation across the UK’ was published in the May/June 2009 issue of the British Journal of Cardiology. The qualitative research project aimed to understand the extent to which national guidance on CHD is being locally adapted and implemented, as well as gauge regional variations in post-MI care.

Follow Your Heart guidance

Sivers F, et al. Follow Your Heart: optimal care after a heart attack – a guide for you and your patients. Br J Cardiol 2009; 16:187-91

‘Follow Your Heart: optimal care after a heart attack – a guide for you and your patients’ was published in the July/August 2009 issue of the British Journal of Cardiology. Based on existing clinical evidence reviewed and consolidated by the Follow Your Heart Steering Group, the guidance provides succinct recommendations for optimal post-MI management and includes separate healthcare professional and patient-focussed components. The guidance is designed to support two-way dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals, to reduce practice variation, to raise standards of care, to maximise resource utilisation and to improve outcomes in post-MI care.

Poster for healthcare professionals

This poster provides a concise summary of the Follow Your Heart guidance and is intended as a simple reference tool for use within a primary care setting.

Patient education leaflet - Follow Your Heart: care after a heart attack - a guide for you and your healthcare professional.

This leaflet summarises the Follow Your Heart guidance for incorporation into day-to-day life, for patients and their families. Providing them with information on their condition and its management, alongside lifestyle advice on how they can improve their cardiac health, it is intended as a helpful reference tool for you to share with your patients.

Educational presentation for healthcare professionals - Follow Your Heart: optimal care after a heart attack.

This slide deck summarising the Follow Your Heart research and guidance may be used with HCPs in your locality for educational purposes around the management of post-MI patients and where relevant, to assist in the implementation of Follow Your Heart. In addition to information about the research and evidence base supporting Follow Your Heart it also contains patient case studies to help explain the recommendations in terms of patient outcomes and day-to-day practice.

Discharge summary template.

This discharge summary template, for use by hospital staff when discharging post-MI patients into primary care, lists recommended criteria for inclusion in a ‘best practice’ discharge summary sheet. Facilitating the use of a detailed discharge sheet within your locality could help ensure that crucial medical information on every post-MI patient is shared appropriately between secondary and primary care, community services and the patients themselves.

Suggestions on how to implement Follow Your Heart in your local area.

Document providing details of steps you can take to organise and encourage the implementation of Follow Your Heart in your local area. These are only suggestions and implementation will need to be tailored to the structure of local services.

Please note that production of the ‘Implementation Toolkit’ was funded by Pfizer.

*Who are the members of the Follow Your Heart Group?

Steering Committee members
• Dr Alan Begg, General Practitioner, Links Medical Centre, Montrose, Scotland
• Brian Ellis, patient and Board Member of HEART UK, Longfield, Kent
• Dr David Milne, General Practitioner, North Hill Surgery, Colchester, Essex
• Dr Jonathan Morrell, General Practitioner, Beaconsfield Road Surgery, Hastings, East Sussex
• Dr Dermot Neely, Consultant Chemical Pathologist, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals, Newcastle Upon Tyne
• Dr Michael Norton, Community Consultant Cardiologist, Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust, Sunderland
• Michaela Nuttall, Cardiac Nurse Specialist, Bromley Primary Care Trust, Bromley, London
• Dr Malcolm Walker, Consultant Cardiologist, University College Hospital, London

Stakeholder representatives
• Jules Payne, Chief Executive, HEART UK, Maidenhead, Berkshire
• Dr Fran Sivers, Chief Executive Officer, Primary Care Cardiovascular Society
• Gemma Hobson, Patient Relationship Manager, Pfizer
• Andrew Thomas, Associate Director, EU/UK Communications, Pfizer
• Dr Iqbal Minhas, Regional Medical Manager, Pfizer