At Heart ReWorks, we combine specialist cardiology expertise with health services research, pathway analysis and policy insight to support better understanding of disease and health systems.
Syncope is a common but frequently misunderstood clinical presentation. Patients may enter the system through primary care, emergency departments, ambulance services, neurology, cardiology, falls services, older people’s medicine or general medical pathways. This can make it difficult to understand where delays occur, where diagnostic uncertainty persists, and where opportunities for earlier, safer and more coordinated care may be missed.
In collaboration with the charity STARS, our syncope service analysis focused mapping these real-world challenges across the patient journey. We examined how people with syncope and transient loss of consciousness move through the healthcare system, including referral routes, access to diagnostic testing, specialist service availability, clinical decision points, patient experience, and variation in local provision.
We drew on a large dataset of structured and semi-structured sources, such as service-level information, referral patterns, coded activity, patient and clinician feedback, pathway mapping and publicly available population and health system intelligence.
We supported the 2025 Heart Rhythm Congress and the STARS Patients Day, sharing our in-depth insights with clinicians, patients and policymakers. We have also delivered up to date literature reviews, economic analyses, policy briefings and executive summaries, and highlighted the results of this project to the medical industry and Members of Parliament during the World Heart Rhythm Week Parliamentary Reception 2026.
Our analytical approach to service design and change is designed to support practical, feasible improvements. This includes identifying the most common bottlenecks to diagnosis and care: where patients are most likely to experience delayed diagnosis, repeated presentations, inconsistent referral onward, fragmented investigations, or limited access to specialist assessment where appropriate.
Heart ReWorks brings to this project particular value through the combination of clinical cardiology knowledge and wider system-level interpretation. Understanding syncope care requires clinical insight and the ability to translate data into actionable recommendations for services, charities, policymakers, commissioners and research partners.
Our work can support organisations seeking to understand unmet needs in other pathologies, strengthening evidence for service development and advocacy campaigns, designing surveys or audits, analysing variations in care, developing policy briefings, and turning complex intelligence into clear, credible outputs.
Interested in our syncope research and pathway improvement expertise?
Contact us at general@heartreworks.com to discuss how Heart ReWorks can support your next clinical, research or service improvement initiative.
Disclaimer:
Heart ReWorks Ltd is an independent healthcare consultancy. Our syncope work is conducted with appropriate respect for confidentiality, data protection, professional boundaries and patient anonymity. Public-facing materials are used for research, policy and service improvement communication purposes only and do not disclose confidential datasets, identifiable patient information, unpublished partner-specific findings, or commercially sensitive methodology.
