Around 3,000 lives could be saved and 5,500 hospital admissions prevented each year by changes to how people are treated for heart failure, according to a watchdog.
New draft guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommend medicines are given up to a year earlier.
It has looked specifically at a type of heart failure called heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), which happens when the left side of the heart fails to pump blood out to the body properly.
The condition affects around 387,000 of the 614,000 adults in England with heart failure.
Nice said medics are already changing practice to ensure that the four pillars of treatment – angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), a beta-blocker (BB), a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) and a sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitor – can be used earlier without the need to optimise the dose of any one medicine before introducing another.
Nice is recommending widespread earlier use of the SGLT2 inhibitors empagliflozin and dapagliflozin – giving them at the start of treatment rather than waiting up to a year for dosage of other drugs to be optimised.
Generally, Nice said the drugs can also be started by GPs with advice from a heart failure specialist, rather than having to refer people to hospitals.
Eric Power, deputy director in Nice’s centre for guidelines, said: “Heart failure is common, with currently around 614,000 adults in England living with a diagnosis.
“Although there’s no cure, it is treatable, and the growing number of people living with heart failure is testament to the improvements in care introduced over recent years.
“For this update we’ve been able to review the emerging evidence quickly to keep pace with changes in the treatment landscape and make recommendations that will widen access to effective treatments.
“This should have a big impact on the lives of people living with heart failure as well as freeing up space in hospitals by reducing their risk of having to go to hospital for unplanned emergency treatment.”
