• Mugur Nicolae, Tom Gentles, Geoff Strange, David Tanous, Patrick Disney, Andrew Bullock, Leeanne Grigg, Sylvia S M Chen, Lynne Pressley, Rachael Cordina, Tim Hornung, Clare O'Donnell, and David S Celermajer.
• Cardiology Department, Mater Hospital Brisbane, Brisbane, Qld, Australia; School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, Australia. Electronic address: Mugurel.nicolae@mater.org.au.
• Heart Lung Circ. 2019 Apr 1; 28 (4): 521-529.

BackgroundAdult congenital heart disease (ACHD) is a relatively new subspecialty in the cardiology field. The prevalence of ACHD is estimated at ∼ 3,000 per million adult population. The ACHD patient group is estimated to grow at ∼ 5% per year and in the next decade it is forecast that 1 in 150 young adults will carry some form of ACHD diagnosis. These estimates translate to ∼ 72,000 ACHD patients in Australia and ∼ 14,000 in New Zealand, although no current numbers are available. The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ) has recently published Recommendations for Standards of Care for Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) in 2016. There is currently no long-term plan or proposal to address this huge health care burden within the federal government. This document details the size of the problem insofar as it is known and recommends solutions to be implemented.MethodsThis document was developed by the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Working Group of the Paediatric and Congenital Council (the Congenital Heart Alliance of Australia and New Zealand) as a response to the chronic under resourcing in this area, the risk this poses to patients and clinicians, and the clear need for long-term planning to develop safe care pathways.ResultsThese issues were raised with the CSANZ Board in December 2015 and the document was developed in response to the Board's request for more information. The current iteration was finalised on 14 November 2017.ConclusionsThe authorship group comprised participants in the CSANZ adult CHD standards of care recommendations from 2013 with the inclusion of some newly trained ACHD cardiologists, who represented most states and territories across ANZ. None of the authors has any academic or professional conflict of interest.Copyright © 2018 Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS) and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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