Guidance Regarding Provision of Cardiac Rehabilitation Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Statement from British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation

27th March 2020

In light of the ongoing implications of the COVID-19 pandemic the British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation has produced the following guidance as clinical care may not be possible through the cardiac rehab programmes with redeployment of staff:

Ø  For services which are still being delivered, by a skeleton staff, face to face sessions will now be replaced by remote assessment and monitoring of patients. The assessments and regular reviews will be by telephone, text messaging, emails and/or for patients who are able to access online options include video consultations, web based platforms and apps.  For more information, please click here.

o   For those patients who have been assessed and have already set agreed individualised goals, they can continue with a home exercise programme and  regular telephone/video call reviews.  Online options available to the service should be considered and a final assessment via telephone/video call undertaken.  The programme should address as much as possible of the main core components of cardiovascular rehabilitation:  lifestyle risk management, psychosocial support and medical risk management.  

o   For new patients who have not yet been assessed an early post discharge review by telephone or video call is important to carry out an initial assessment, explain current programme structure options and may help avoid rehospitalisation.  

o   Consideration may be needed to triage patients via telephone/video call to assess the risk/priority of patients.

o   Consider use of exercise professionals in the cardiac rehab team who are not deployed to frontline work to continue reviews/monitoring of patients. 

Ø  For non-facilitated services where all cardiac rehab staff have been redeployed we would recommend prior to discharge that staff signpost patients who undergo an acute cardiac event e.g. AMI, PPCI to BHF patient resources,  any locally developed resources available and to online resources which do not require clinical assessment e.g. generic web based platforms and apps.  

Current COVID-19 NHS guidance for Clinicians    https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/     (Accessed 27th March 2020) 

30 March 2020

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