Permanent pacemakers are a common treatment for slow heart beats. In the UK 300,000 people have a pacemaker, and each year another 36,000 receive them. All of these patients are usually seen yearly to have their device checked. However, pacemaker technology is now very reliable, batteries last well over 5 years, and many patients require their pacemaker only occasionally as a back-up. Each visit costs around £200 such that pacemaker follow-up cost the NHS around £50million per year. Most visits involve checking the battery and the leads which, in the absence of symptoms might be unnecessary. Pacemaker patients are at risk of developing other problems including heart failure which puts them at higher risk of hospitalisation and death. For those under follow-up, no mechanism exists to identify whether they might have heart failure, and for those receiving new implants, it is unclear which will go on to develop heart failure. Also, whether optimal heart failure treatment with a multidisciplinary team reduces the chances that they will be hospitalised is also unproven. Our study therefore has three main aims: 1) based on pacing indications and patient factors, to identify which patients are likely to develop complications and therefore which patients could be seen less frequently; 2) to validate and refine a simple risk score to help identify which patients in pacing clinic should undergo screening for heart failure; and 3) to establish whether such screening and subsequent optimisation of those with heart failure is clinically and cost-effective for reducing hospitalisation and death.
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Combined hospitalisation and mortality
Timeframe: 3 years