21 Making education more accessible

<h3>Background</h3> Prior to covid Lancashire Teaching Hospitals education sessions were delivered once a week over a 4-week period, face to face by pharmacy, dietitian, occupational therapy/psychology, and exercise physiologists. This was offered separate to the exercise-based sessions meaning that patients were attending a further 4 appointments and if they were unable to attend, they missed out. <h3>Aim</h3> With the BACPR core components, namely 3.2, Health behaviour change and education in mind, Lancashire Teaching Cardiac Rehabilitation service, aimed to make education more accessible in order to achieve successful long-term maintenance of change and self-management of patient’s conditions by providing evidence-based information that is available in a variety of media to afford patients the opportunity to select those which best suit their learning needs, breaking previous barriers to education attendance such as transport, time, mobility, mental health. <h3>Methods</h3> All patients were asked to evaluate the cardiac rehabilitation service on discharge from the programme in 2019. Patients identified the barriers to education and ways we could make it more accessible. The year 2019, when education was available separate from the exercise component over a four-week period has been compared to the year 2023, when the education talks changed and are available via email, QR code and the one off multidisciplinary face-to-face talks. Data has been reviewed focusing on the number of referrals received by Lancashire Teaching Cardiac Rehabilitation team, versus the number of people that accessed the education element of the programme. <h3>Results</h3> The tables below demonstrate that by providing alternative methods of accessing education, the uptake of education has increased. Figure 1 below demonstrate this increase. This will enable patients to achieve successful long-term maintenance of change and self-management of their conditions. <h3>Conclusion</h3> The aim of making education more accessible to patients is to enable them to achieve successful long-term maintenance of change and self-management of their long term heart health and conditions. Making education more accessible has increased the uptake.