Improving 18 Week Patient Pathways

About Us

The NHS Heart Improvement Programme is part of NHS Improvement - a national programme that works with clinical networks and NHS organisations to transform, deliver and sustain improvements across the entire pathway of care in several priority areas. These include cancer, cardiac, diagnostics, stroke services and lung improvement.

The Heart Improvement Programme reports to the Department of Health CHD Programme Board, with a remit to:

  • Support cardiac network development
  • Ensure spread of service improvement within cardiac networks
  • Facilitate the introduction of new service improvement tools and recognised clinical innovations.  

 

Background
Prior to the establishment of the NHS Heart Improvement Programme in April 2005, the Coronary Heart Disease Collaborative (CHDC) was a national NHS funded programme designed to make improvements in the way CHD services are delivered to patients.

The Collaborative was a key element in the delivery of standards laid out in the National Service Framework (NSF) for CHD. The goal was to improve the experience and outcomes for people who have, or who are at risk of developing heart disease, by redesigning the whole pathway of care. Key to the approach is getting managers, clinicians and the whole multi-disciplinary team to work together to review the system of care. Collaborative methodology is still being used to drive improvements in other areas of the NHS, for example in cancer and in primary care as well as in CHD.

Phase 1 of the CHD Collaborative started in October 2000 with 10 local CHD programme teams aiming to create improved methods of service delivery for patients with suspected or diagnosed CHD. These teams consist of CHD service providers working together as a logical local CHD network.

From April 2002 the Collaborative became 30 local CHD network programmes covering the whole of England, working together with the support of the national team. Each CHD Collaborative has six projects which focus on redesigning the system of care delivery, in line with the NSF:

  • Secondary Prevention
  • Acute Myocardial Infarction
  • Angina
  • Heart Failure
  • Cardiac Surgery
  • Cardiac Rehabilitation

From April 2005, funding for these 30 programmes was devolved to the emerging 32 cardiac networks, with the local Collaborative teams becoming the service improvement arm of the networks.