Our Services

Adult Community Health Services

Heart Failure Specialist Nurse Service

The Heart Failure Specialist Nurse team are a part of the wider community nursing service in Guildford and Waverley working with patients, carers, GPs, practice nurses, other specialist nurses, and consultants to reduce mortality and improve the quality of life for patients with chronic heart failure.

The service aims to optimise health and wellbeing for individuals through specialist advice, support and treatment and to prevent you from being admitted to hospital unnecessarily.

Who is the Heart Failure Nurse Specialist Service available to?

The service is available for adults aged over 18 who are registered with a Guildford & Waverley GP.

This include patients living in their own homes or residential and nursing care homes.

How can I arrange an appointment?

Your appointment would be made following a referral from your GP or hospital specialist consultant, where there is a clinical diagnosis of heart failure which is confirmed by an echocardiogram and where you would benefit from nursing assessment and care planning.

Following your initial assessment at home or in a local community clinic, you and your carer are able to contact the community heart failure specialist nurse team directly.

Where are appointments held?

Appointments are held at home or in a local community clinic. Telephone appointments are also available.

What will happen at an appointment?

The Heart Failure Service provides:

  • Assessment and care planning to develop and agree individual goals

  • Post hospital discharge review and assessment

  • Optimisation of anti-heart failure medications

  • Management of decompensation episodes

  • Education and advice to support people with treatment and self-management strategies at home

  • End of life care in partnership with local palliative care and district nurse teams.

 

What should I bring to my appointment?

 

Please bring details of any medication you are taking.

When is the service available?

The service operates Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00, excluding bank holidays.

However if you would like to speak to a generalist nurse at the weekends or out of hours, please call our Community Co-ordination Centre on 01483 362 020.

 

How can I tell you what I think of the Heart Failure Specialist Service?

We very much value feedback from all of our patients, and may ask you to complete a satisfaction questionnaire after your appointment.

How can I contact you?

Please ring our Community Co-ordination Centre on 01483 362 020.