Footnotes

• Competing interests The author contributed to NICE STA as one of a number of Clinical Specialists, having been nominated by the Royal College of Physicians,and was earlier a member of the GDG for Chronic Heart Failure (2010). As Chair to the British Society for Heart Failure (BSH), 2011-13, and a current BSH Board member, potential indirect COI arise with a range of companies, listed on the BSH website, including Servier, whose grants and other contributions support BSH activities.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.