Cardiac rehabilitation provides supervised exercise & education classes to help recovery of those people who have had serious heart problems or surgery. Classes take place in Glasgow hospitals. The GP Referral Exercise Scheme now links in with these classes and helps people to maintain activity within a community setting once initial rehabilitation in hospital has been completed.

Things have been speeding along on the Cardiac Rehabilitation front. Several more British Assocation of Cardiac Rehabilitators (BACR) Phase IV courses have been run in Glasgow and the pool of qualified BACR instructors is now burgeoning. Provision of phase IV classes has increased twofold over the last year with over 20 classes now operating on a weekly basis across the city. More new classes are planned in the year ahead and it is envisioned that the coverage should include mainstreaming some of the provision through Glasgow City Council's Culture and Leisure Services department.

The expansion of existing provision is largely due to the pro-active partnership work of the GP exercise referral team, cardiac rehabilitation staff and Culture and Leisure services.

The referral process is becoming more seamless between Phase III and Phase IV with more and more patients moving smoothly from one to the other. The high-risk side of the GP exercise referral scheme has aided this expansion considerably over the past year. The scheme continues to work closely with Cardiac Rehabilitation staff across the city. This approach is helping to develop a more effective multi-disciplinary team approach. Staff are working together to improve the coverage and provision for Cardiac Patients throughout the city.

For further information contact:

Kevin Lafferty
Health Promotion Department
NHS Greater Glasgow
Dalian House
350 St Vincent Place
Glasgow
G2 1DU

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