Project: Understanding guidelines

Understanding heart failure guidelines is a collection of lay summaries of key principles in leading European heart failure (HF) guidelines, namely the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines, England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and position statements by the Heart Failure Association of the ESC.

Guidelines are documents with suggestions or recommendations for care that derive from scientific evidence to aid patients and healthcare professionals in their decision-making – they are not prescriptive documents. Care must be tailored to each person’s needs through careful collaboration between the person with HF, their family/carers and the HF care team.

The HFPN has developed this collection to raise awareness of key elements of best practice in the care and management of HF. With this collection, the HFPN aims to:

• increase the uptake of leading guidelines in HF care
• give confidence to patient advocates and local health policy commentators/champions to scrutinise local and national HF policy, guidance and care arrangements.

The guides in this collection do not replicate or supersede established clinical guidelines for the purpose of formal professional training or accreditation, patient therapeutic education or clinical decision-making. Clinicians, patients and service managers should consult European and national guidance as appropriate.

Click on the buttons below to download the guides: