Consultant Nurse Failure and Cardiac Rehabilitation

Linda initially trained in Orthopaedics prior to completing general nurse training at St Georges, London before moving to The University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Most of her career has been spent in Cardiac nursing, initially within acute settings before focussing on cardiac rehabilitation and heart failure. Linda took up the position of Consultant Nurse 20 years ago and during that time has been able to develop heart failure and rehabilitation services across 3 Health Boards, 2 in Wales and 1 with a community partnership in North Somerset. Working with North Somerset Community partnership also gave the opportunity to work as a Consultant Nurse within frailty services, where we developed a new service providing a comprehensive review and management plans within the community.

Linda works nationally across Wales and the UK, taking a lead role in both cardiac rehabilitation and heart failure forums, as well as working closely with the Cardiac Network for Wales. Linda has taken active roles nationally within BACPR (British Association Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation) and the BSH (British Society Heart failure) Nurse forum.

Previous research has focussed on implementation of evidence into practice, patient perception of disease and activation to self-manage.

Current clinical focus has been the transformation of heart failure and cardiac rehabilitation services that are patient focussed where Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROMs) are embedded and central to the care delivered, influencing care delivery. This has been with a heart failure population, and significant changes have been made to pathways improving both patient and clinical outcomes.