Dr Hayes Dalal

About me:

Dr Hasnain (Hayes) Dalal qualified from the University of Sheffield in 1981 and was the joint Chief Investigator on a cardiac rehabilitation programme - REACH-HF [Rehabilitation Enablement in Chronic Heart Failure] - a NIHR-funded study (2013-19).

In collaboration with Prof Rod Taylor and colleagues, their team has led to changes in policy and clinical practice in expanding access to effective cardiac rehabilitation for people with heart disease. Their programme of eleven Cochrane systematic reviews has directly informed national policy (England, Scotland) and nine international clinical guidelines (in the USA and Europe) on the delivery of cardiac rehabilitation services.

The REACH-HF trial and subsequent studies formed a central basis of a REF2021 Research Impact Case study for the University of Exeter (as part of the Unit of Assessment 2, Health Services, Public Health & Primary Care).

REACH-HF is an innovative programme giving people with heart failure an alternative to traditional centre-based rehabilitation and its adaptation for delivery during COVID-19 was one of the factors that won them the BMJ Stroke and Cardiovascular team of the year awardin 2020. Healthcare practitioners have observed that REACH-HF has ‘enriched their cardiac rehab service immensely’ finding it an ‘invaluable resource during the pandemic’.

Hayes is currently involved in projects involving the digitisation of REACH-HF funded by the British Heart Foundation and the NIHR and is also co-ordinating the training of health care professionals to deliver REACH-HF in a project funded by NHS England.

Professor Nick Linker, NHS national clinical director for heart disease, says that the funding provided by NHS England ‘will ensure heart failure patients benefit from the additional at-home support that they might need’.

Hayeswas aGP partner at the Three Spires Medical Practice in Truroanda senior clinical researcher at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust. He has conducted various NHS-funded research projects in collaboration with patients, clinicians and academics involving heart disease and rehabilitation. He has been working asan associate professor with the Primary Care Research Group at the University of Exeter Medical School since July 2020.

Qualifications:

MBChB MD FRCGP FHEA