Chest pain is a serious symptom that may indicate heart disease. It is a common reason for people to attend hospital or their GP. Specialist cardiac services have been designed to review those with suspicious symptoms and start important treatments if necessary. These are known as Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics (RACPC). However, there has been no systematic review of referral patterns and outcomes after RACPC assessment. Not every patient with chest pain is referred by their GP, and not every referral is triaged to RACPC. We suspect that opportunities to prevent heart attacks may be being missed. To investigate this, we will use linked healthcare data to evaluate outcomes in patients with recent onset chest pain, over the last decade in NHS Lothian. We will review how investigations, treatments, and outcomes (such as heart attacks and deaths due to heart disease) have varied between those reviewed and not reviewed in specialist services. Our aim is to find improvement opportunities and identify the types of referrals that should be prioritised.
