In accordance with the National Institute for Health Research restart framework, SYMPACT is hoping to restart collecting data soon. I don’t have to tell you that our world has changed since the beginning of this year. These changes have been challenging for us all.

I told you that I was pressing pause on SYMPACT due to some of these changes earlier this year and at that point I was hoping I could un-pause it and go back to completing data collection in both Phase I and Phase II with limited changes. Unfortunately, this is not the reality I am now facing.

For lots of reasons, we have made the decision to close Phase I of SYMPACT. So we will no longer be asking people with heart failure to complete the questionnaires. Mainly, we have made this decision as things have changed so much we do not believe that we can put questionnaires completed before the lock down together with ones completed after lock down. Secondly this project is forming a major part of my PhD and I need to finish it!

We will be re-starting Phase II where we ask people who completed Phase I to have a conversation with us about what it is like to live with and manage chronic heart failure in light of any symptoms. I have submitted an amendment to the ethics committee(s) and hope to start interviewing people again soon. How we do this interview is changing and instead of having this conversation face to face we planning on using telephones or virtual calls.

Please bear with us as we make these changes and work on completing the data collection.