News

Kettering General Hospital’s Cardiac Rehabilitation Service for people who have had heart problems has achieved a hard-won national quality mark. 

It has been awarded the Green National Certification Award for Cardiac Rehabilitation 2024-2025 for the way it delivers timely and high-quality services for patients.

The award is from the British Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (BACPR) and National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation (NACR).

Nationally out of 184 cardiac rehabilitation centres in England, 93 of them have secured the Green Certified status which demonstrates a high standard of service to patients across seven key areas.

KGH’s Clinical Lead for Cardiology, who is also an interventional cardiologist, Dr Prashanth Raju, said: “We have now achieved this quality mark for the seventh year running – achieving it every year since the award first started.

“It demonstrates very clearly just how consistently our Cardiac Rehabilitation Team delivers a top-quality cardiac rehabilitation service to local people.

“We do everything expected of this service and do it to a high standard for the 800-900cardiac patients who use the service each year after having had a heart attack or other heart problems.”

Chika Obiechefu, Clinical Lead, Cardiac Rehab Services, said: “Achieving this accreditation means that we are very well organised and are doing the right things for patients to help them recover from the trauma of having a heart attack and all the uncertainties that brings with it.

“Our team all work together, alongside our cardiac consultants and doctors, to ensure people get the right support that suits their needs and helps them to recover both physically and regain their confidence, which is often severely knocked by these life-changing events.”

Achieving the Green National Certification Award for Cardiac Rehabilitation means:

 

• A hospital has a Cardiac Rehabilitation Team (CR) which must be multidisciplinary with no less than three staff groups - KGH has five Specialist Cardiac Nurses, three Exercise Physiologists and an Administrator.
• Patients starting core cardiac rehabilitation must cover the five priority groups (heart attack, heart failure, cardiac patients treated with stents, bypass grafts and those with implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) insertion. - KGH supports patients with all of these and in addition includes patients who have had heart transplant valve replacements and repairs.
• Duration of cardiac rehabilitation must be a minimum of 56 days (8 weeks). KGH’s is 12 weeks.
• Offer of pre-assessment of patients before rehabilitation begins at least 80% of the time - KGH achieves 100%
• Waiting time from referral to the start core cardiac rehabilitation for bypass graft patients to be no more than 46 days – KGH’s is 21days.
• Waiting time from referral to the start of core cardiac rehabilitation post heart attack and post stent to be no more than 33 days - KGH achieves 19 days.
• Offer of an assessment post cardiac rehabilitation has a take up of at least 57% - KGH is 69%.

 

Dr Raju added: “Hitting the seven key targets means t hat we are offering a topnotch quality service to our cardiac patients in and around Northamptonshire post treatment by their consultants.

“We met all the key performance indicators set up to monitor services in England and this has been consistent, year after year, and we offer rehabilitation for every recognizable cardiac condition after treatment by the cardiac consultant.

“We are quick in getting you into the service and to start your program. We also offer many weeks of rehabilitation so we can even support people who need to take holidays during this period.

“We are also very good at providing our patients with an initial assessment before they take part in rehabilitation and another once they have completed it to ensure they are safe to carry on with life.

“As cardiologist, I am reassured that our patients who undergo various heart treatments are in the hands of such a hardworking, efficient and safe cardiac rehabilitation team.”