The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) has formulated a Heart Failure Optimise programme to help pharmacy professionals increase their knowledge, skills and confidence in supporting people living with heart failure.
The programme is designed to help pharmacy teams build confidence and apply learning directly in everyday practice to improve patient outcomes.
It supports pharmacy professionals to discuss the possible barriers to optimising heart failure treatment.
This includes identifying 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.
These 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.
Around 900,000 people are living with heart failure in the UK and costs NHS up to £6 billion each year.
In the last decade, hospital admissions due to heart failures have increased by 50%.
