Heart failure: beta blockers

Indicator

The percentage of patients with a current diagnosis of heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction, who are currently treated with a beta-blocker licensed for heart failure.

Introduction

There is good evidence (see the NICE guideline on chronic heart failure in adults: diagnosis and management) that prescribing ACE-I/ARB as well as beta-blockers for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction below 40%, can improve symptoms, reduce hospitalisation rate and improve survival.

This indicator focuses on beta-blockers only to ensure the denominator size is large enough at practice level to not be subject to random variation in achievement.

Resource impact

The change to the existing indicator removes the need to include people who are currently treated with an ACE-I or ARB in the denominator. This changes the denominator to be people with a current diagnosis of heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction.   

The overall resource impact of the proposed indicator is therefore unlikely to be significant.