A Cochrane systematic review has concluded that patients with chronic heart failure are less likely to die a year after discharge if they are offered case management—intense monitoring usually involving telephone follow-up by a specialist nurse and home visits. Such patients are also less likely to be readmitted to hospital in the six months after discharge.1

Chronic heart failure is becoming increasingly common as the population ages and carries high risks of emergency hospitalisation and death. In 2000 around 1.9% of the total budget of the NHS was spent on patients with heart failure and most of this cost was incurred by …