Nearly all UK residents are registered with a general practice and data collected during routine consultations can be used by researchers to understand more about common diseases. Heart failure occurs when the heart has been damaged and is struggling to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body. Patients can feel breathless, exhausted and have swollen legs but treatments to improve quality of life and outlook are available.

In this lecture, Dr Taylor will explore how we can use large, anonymised GP datasets to improve our understanding of heart failure management in primary care. With a focus on the patient throughout, she will present her recent work on heart failure diagnosis and survival to illustrate the power, and limitations, of using big GP data for research and to ultimately improve patient care.