Health insurance patients with heart failure to get better end of life care?

Improved end of life care could soon be available to some Scottish health insurance patients who have suffered heart failure following the introduction of a new five-year programme.

Caring Together has been devised by Marie Curie Cancer Care, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and British Heart Foundation Scotland with the aim of raising standards for patients across Glasgow and Clyde.

It promises a new approach to palliative care - an area where many of the 100,000 people living with heart failure in Scotland currently have unmet needs.

"Compared with most cancer patients, people with heart failure often have poorer symptom control and quality of life and limited access to palliative and social care services," observed British Heart Foundation (BHF) chief executive Peter Hollins.

He added the Caring Together initiative will "really make a difference" to those who are living with heart failure, as well as their families.

Last month, the BHF launched new research into regenerative medicine that, it is hoped, will make it easier to recover from heart failure.