In this episode of The PJ Pod, we explore the main changes and implications for practice of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)’s chronic heart failure guidance update.

On 3 September 2025, NICE released its updated guidance on ‘Chronic heart failure in adults: diagnosis and management’.

The guidance mentions the role of pharmacy for the first time and has implications for an expanded role for primary care in managing heart failure. 

The guidance makes several recommendations, including on the use of combination treatment of the four main types of treatment: angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs), beta-blockers (BBs), mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) and sodium-glucose co-transporter-2s (SGLT2s) inhibitors — also known as the four pillars — in the early treatment of heart failure. 

In this episode of The PJ Pod, clinical editor Caitlin Killen talks to Paul Wright, consultant cardiovascular pharmacist at Barts Health NHS Trust, to learn more about the guidance and its implications for practice.

This episode was produced by Geoff Marsh.

New chronic heart failure guidance: what does it mean for practice?

GUEST MIX VOL.62 by ITOLDYOUALREADY

For our next GUEST MIX episode we’ve invited Costa Rican DJ and producer based in Barcelona, ITOLDYOUALREADY channels the raw energy of Chicago and UK sounds from the ‘80s and ‘90s. This special set brings together tracks from Geto Mark, Luke’s Anger, DJ Spinn, Alpha 606, Andrea Parker, Jerome Hill, Aud 88, DJ Octopus, Andrew Soul, Ian Pooley, Thoma Bulwer, Anna Wall, Die Roh, Delroy Edwards, Armand Van Helden, and more. Tune in via NHS RADIO.

GUEST MIX VOL.62 by ITOLDYOUALREADY

https://thecommunists.org/2025/10/22/news/healthworkers-denounce-arrest-dr-rahmeh-aladwan-intimidation-campaign/

Why are professional institutions and police forces being used to discipline those who criticise Israeli war crimes and zionist genocidal supremacism?

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan arrested amid targeted intimidation campaign

We're joined by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Paula Sussex in our latest episode of Making Complaints Count. 

Paula speaks to senior caseworker James Glover about her first few months in the role and shares what most excites her about the future.

Episode seven | Paula Sussex, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Better use of technology, the transition from analogue to digital, and greater innovation are at the heart of the 10 Year Health Plan. This includes plans to make the NHS app a gateway to the entire NHS, integrate AI into clinical pathways, create a new Health Data Research Service, make genomic sequencing at birth universal, utilise wearable technology in treatments as standard, and to improve uptake and adoption of medicines.

What are the potential benefits of greater use of technology and innovation in the NHS? Are there any risks associated with this? How deliverable is the 10 Year Health Plan’s vision for the use of technology and innovation in the NHS? What are the barriers to greater adoption of technology and innovation more broadly? And how can these be overcome? How can investment in technology and innovation be protected and prioritised?  

To discuss these questions and more, we were joined by an expert panel including:

Matthew Chisambi, Director of Imperial College Health Partners
Johan Kahlström, President and Managing Director, UK and Ireland at Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK
Sam Roberts, Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

This event was chaired by Nick Davies, Programme Director at the Institute for Government.

We would like to thank Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK for kindly supporting this event.

How can changes to NHS technology help deliver the 10 Year Health Plan?

Poor public service performance was a key reason for Labour’s victory in the 2024 election. Following the new government’s first multi-year spending review and a major reshuffle, this event brough together a panel of experts to discuss how successfully Labour has managed public services since coming to office.  

This event brought together a panel of experts to discuss these key questions:

What was Labour’s public service inheritance?

How much progress has the government made on public services since the election?  

What impact with the spending review have on public service performance?

What are the biggest public service challenges that need to be addressed over the rest of the parliament?

What are the implications for the budget?

As the Institute for Government published the latest edition of Performance Tracker, written in partnership with the Nuffield Foundation, which featured new analysis on the performance of public services, Amber Dellar, Stuart Hoddinott and Cassia Rowland, presented the key findings. They were joined by Stephen Bush, associate editor and columnist at the Financial Times.

This event was chaired by Nick Davies, Programme Director at the Institute for Government, with an introduction by Mark Franks at the Nuffield Foundation.  

This event was kindly supported by the Nuffield Foundation.

How successfully have Labour run public services?

https://thecommunists.org/2025/11/18/news/striking-doctors-sent-on-suicide-mission/

Why do the unions continuously fail to make the link between medics’ conditions and the destruction of the NHS? The ritual call to ‘Kick the Tories out’ has long been an essential component of the fake-left’s control over the working-class movement. And this inability to understand the system or recognise the nature of our class enemies in turn explains working-class impotence in the face of the direst threats to our lives and livelihoods.


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Striking doctors are being sent on a suicide mission

This podcast discusses a UK Supreme Court judgment concerning a long-running Value Added Tax (VAT) dispute between the HMRC and the NHS Lothian Health Board. The core of the case revolves around a late claim by NHS Lothian to recover input VAT paid between 1974 and 1997, utilizing a window of opportunity created by the Finance Act 2008 following key rulings on retrospective time limits. The judgment details the procedural history, noting the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) and Upper Tribunal rejected the claim due to insufficient evidence to quantify the recoverable tax, while the Inner House of the Court of Session overturned this, citing the EU principle of effectiveness. Lady Rose, writing for the Supreme Court, analyzes the legal standards for proving input tax deduction, arguing the Inner House erred by separating the right to deduct from the obligation to quantify the amount claimed and by misapplying the EU principle of effectiveness to the burden of proof.

HMRC v NHS Lothian Health Board (Scotland) [2022] UKSC 28

https://thecommunists.org/2025/11/03/news/labour-party-patriotism-racist-imperialist/
While claiming to stand ‘against racism’, Wes Streeting is engaged in a viciously racist campaign against a doctor who opposes genocide.
 The ‘Butcher’s Apron’ is the flag of a bloodthirsty and malevolent class of exploiters that continues to preside over the most horrific colonial as well as local crimes. Those who are appalled by the genocide in Gaza today are starting to realise that this is one in a long string of British imperialist atrocities, and that zionism itself is but a reflection of the extreme supremacism of the British ruling class.

Subscribe! Donate! Join us in building a bright future for humanity!
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www.lalkar.org
www.redyouth.org
Telegram: t.me/thecommunists
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Rumble: rumble.com/c/theCommunists
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Education Program: Each one teach one!
www.londonworker.org/education-programme/
Join the struggle
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Donate:
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Labour party patriotism is racist and imperialist to the core

This charity single is a festive portrait of Horton Hospital at its best—staff, patients, and the entire Banbury community woven into a bright, upbeat Christmas scene. The lyrics turn everyday hospital life into a celebration: tinsel on IV stands, porters in antlers, physios dressed like trees, and even the X-ray machines getting in on the sparkle. It leans into the reality of a busy hospital, but flips it into something warm, human, and unmistakably local.
The song highlights the dedication of the nurses, doctors, cleaners, cooks, porters, and everyone who keeps the children’s ward running, especially through the winter pressure. Its hook—“Dashing through the wards”—captures that frenetic, compassionate energy that defines Horton’s staff at Christmas.
This track is designed to raise funds for the children’s ward, but also to remind Banbury and Oxfordshire why Horton matters: a place where care doesn’t stop, community shows up, and Christmas spirit cuts through the clinical setting. It’s cheerful, grounded, and proudly Horton—aimed at bringing people together to support the hospital’s youngest patients when it counts.

Dashing through the wards

National Health System Collective & RADIO

beats & meets

Comedy songs and dark-humour originals from a working radiographer. Satire, protest, and indie experiments. 

I write comedy, satire, and straight-up originals about life in radiography, healthcare, and the wider mess. Expect protest anthems, awkward truth, and hooks that stick. If you like Bo Burnham, Weird Al, and indie left-turns, you’re in the right place.

Genres: Alternative, Indie, Singer-Songwriter, Comedy
satire, protest, indie, acoustic, alt-pop

Spotlight tracks:
	1.	“Where You Fell”
	2.	“Gone but Not Forgotten (Lost Souls)”
	3.	“Lazy Like a Monday”
	4.	“Pass the Light Around”
	5.	“All Are One (Defending Every Soul)”

Marxist analysis of current events and scientific socialist theoretical insights from the CPGB-ML. Get educated and get organised!

The leading think tank working to make UK government more effective. 

Stay up to date with all of our commentary, analysis and events by visiting our website and subscribing to our newsletter.

Making Complaints Count is our podcast where we'll be exploring the power of complaints and how organisations can use them to listen, learn and improve. 
 
Each episode we'll be joined by experts working in the health and public sector, complaints champions and those who have experienced the complaints journey first-hand.

Keeping you one step ahead of developments in pharmacy, medicines and the pharmaceutical sciences. Brought to you by the team behind The Pharmaceutical Journal.

New tracks tagged #NHS