REACH-HF Digital Training V1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The REACH-HF Digital Training Study: Extending the reach and implementation of the successful REACH-HF programme with a digitally delivered training programme.
IRAS ID
305835
Contact name
Colin Greaves
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Exeter
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 11 days
Research summary
Heart failure (HF) affects approximately one million UK adults, costing the NHS £2 billion per year. Cardiac rehabilitation (exercise and self-care programmes) improves quality of life and reduces hospital stays. However, less than 20% of HF patients participate, often due to difficulties travelling to attend clinic-based rehabilitation. In a previous clinical trial, we showed that a home-based cardiac rehabilitation programme improves quality of life, is affordable for the NHS and acceptable to patients, care-givers and health-professionals. This programme includes four elements: a patient HF symptom checker and exercise manual, a patient progress tracker, a family and friends' resource, and support from health-professionals.
This REACH-HF programme is being rolled out in cardiac rehabilitation centres across the UK. The current three-day face-to-face training for REACH-HF cardiac rehabilitation providers is time-consuming and relatively expensive. Consequently, it is not well suited for wide-scale implementation. With over 250 cardiac rehabilitation centres in the UK (each with 3-4 staff who could potentially be trained to deliver REACH-HF), a more cost-efficient and resource-efficient training programme is clearly needed. Offering training online would allow busy NHS staff to access the training when it is convenient.
Digital content can be used to provide information, reinforce skills, provide examples of good practice (via video and audio recordings of delivery examples) and provide opportunities for mutual support and formative feedback (e.g. from trainers or from experienced facilitators). Digital training content can also be accessed in a flexible way that fits more easily around the busy schedules of clinical staff. The course content is the same, although the online training has some additional elements such as video clips exemplifying good practice for delivering REACH-HF.
To support the large-scale implementation of the REACH-HF and enable more NHS sites to access the programme, we wish to develop a digitally-delivered training programme and then run a brief evaluation to check the quality of intervention delivery when this novel format of training is used.REC name
West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/WM/0079
Date of REC Opinion
29 Mar 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion