Heart failure accounts for between 1 per cent and 2 per cent of health care expenditure in developed countries and up to 5 per cent of admissions to general medical and geriatric wards. With a growing ageing population and increased survival rates to myocardial infarction, these statistics are likely to increase dramatically. This increasing workload falls to the hospital specialist and the general practitioner as, once diagnosis has been confirmed, the patient requires careful monitoring and management for the duration of their life.