Recovery at home after heart surgery

A coronary artery bypass graft, usually called a bypass or CABG, uses a blood vessel taken from the leg, arm or chest to carry blood around a narrowed artery. Where the surgeon has to go through the breastbone to reach the heart, the British Heart Foundation explains, it is fixed back together afterwards with permanent metal wires. Valve surgery repairs or replaces a heart valve. It can be done the same way, through the breastbone, or through smaller cuts, and an aortic valve can be replaced through a thin tube passed along a blood vessel, which is called TAVI.

A stent is a much smaller procedure. A thin tube is passed through an artery in the groin, wrist or arm to open the narrowed artery from the inside, and the chest is not opened at all. If your relative has had a planned stent, the recovery is days rather than weeks, and most of this page does not apply.

The NHS pages on bypass recovery, valve replacement recovery and recovery after a stent are short and worth reading. The rest of this page is about an operation through the breastbone. If your relative's heart operation followed heart failure, or they have been told they have it, heart failure at home covers the daily weight check and the signs of fluid building up, which carry on after the surgery. For the weeks either side of any hospital stay, the hospital discharge and post-operative care guide is the place to start.

The British Heart Foundation's booklet on bypass surgery says to avoid putting too much strain or weight on the chest, arms or shoulders until it has healed, and to avoid lifting more than the weight of a half-filled kettle until the wound has healed, which usually takes about six to eight weeks. Some hospitals give a longer time: Guy's and St Thomas' tells its patients that healing takes about three months. The NHS says no heavy lifting for three months. Ask the ward which limit applies to your relative, and write it down.

Guy's and St Thomas' and other hospitals teach a rule called "keep your move in the tube". Your relative imagines a tube around the upper body and keeps the arms close to the chest, inside it, whenever they lift, carry or push, including when they push themselves up from a bed or a chair. So somebody who has always levered themselves out of an armchair with both arms has to learn a different way, and a low, soft chair makes that harder.

Almost everything in that table is a job somebody else can do. Most of the help needed after heart surgery is not nursing but another pair of hands. Shopping, cooking and cleaning, and what counts as care sets out how carers handle those jobs.

The mood can be hard to read when somebody who was cheerful on the ward is quiet and tearful at home a week later. The British Heart Foundation's page on depression and heart conditions draws the line at feelings that do not pass: persistent sadness for weeks or months, losing interest in things they usually enjoy, and lasting tiredness can be depression, and that is for the GP. The Plymouth leaflet says the same: if your relative feels unduly depressed, let the GP know. Mental health in later life covers what the GP can offer.

A leg wound can take longer to heal than the chest, as Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust's leaflet says. Look at both wounds each day in good light. The signs that need a phone call are below, and wound care at home covers dressings and keeping a wound clean.

Company helps with both the tiredness and the low spirits. Somebody who cannot drive or carry anything can spend long days alone, and an hour with a carer who makes lunch and walks to the end of the road with them breaks that up. Helping someone who is lonely has more on this.

NHS England's commissioning standards for cardiovascular rehabilitation, published in December 2024, name coronary revascularisation, which covers both bypass surgery and stents, among the priority groups for it. The same standards say a patient should be contacted within five working days of the service receiving the referral. For valve surgery the NHS says your relative may be offered it, so ask. The BHF says sessions are usually once or twice a week for six or more weeks, and can be online, in person or a mix of both. The NHS says programmes include support for anxiety and low mood.

1. 1

   Ask on the ward

   Before discharge

   Ask whether a referral to cardiac rehabilitation has been made, which service it has gone to, and whether you can have the number. The BHF says that in many hospitals a member of the cardiac team sees people on the ward before they leave.
2. 2

   Ring if nobody has called

   The first weeks home

   If nobody has been in touch after a week or two at home, ring the number you were given, or the cardiac nurses at the hospital, and ask whether the referral arrived.
3. 3

   Ask the GP if there is no referral

   Any time

   The NHS says you do not need a referral from a cardiologist for cardiac rehab, and suggests contacting the GP surgery to find out how to register. The BHF Heart Helpline, staffed by cardiac nurses, can also help.
4. 4

   Work out how they will get there

   Before the first session

   Your relative cannot drive a car for at least four weeks after a bypass. If the sessions are in person, somebody needs to take them, or ask whether an online or home programme is an option.

The last step is the one that stops people going. If the family cannot do every lift, a carer who drives can take your relative to the sessions and wait. Finding a carer who drives explains how that works, and mileage and travel time are chargeable only if agreed with the carer in advance in writing. The British Heart Foundation's heart surgery pages have more on what rehab involves and how to reach their nurses.

The chest pain and stroke rows come from the NHS list of complications after a bypass, and the heartbeat row adds the NHS advice on palpitations. The breathlessness row is from the University Hospitals Plymouth leaflet, and the opening wound from University Hospitals Sussex. Some bruising and tenderness are expected, and so is a wound that feels itchy or numb as it heals.

A carer who comes in each day sees the wounds, the breathing and the walking every day, so they often notice a change first. They do not give clinical advice, but they can tell you that morning. Avoiding readmission covers why people go back into hospital after an operation and what helps at home.

Where your relative lives with a partner who is well, the partner may be able to cover the nights and the company, and the help needed is mostly the lifting and carrying. A visit most days for the shopping, the housework, the laundry and a meal takes that off both of them. For somebody who lives alone, the first fortnight is likely to need more: a morning visit for getting up, washing and breakfast, and an evening visit for a meal and the tablets. At an hour each, that is 28 hours over two weeks, which comes to £560 at the typical rate of £20 an hour on PrimeCarers, with our fee included. Through an agency, at £28 to £35 an hour, the same fortnight costs £784 to £980. What a carer can do in an hour shows how much fits into a visit.

If the first nights worry you, a sleeping night from a carer on PrimeCarers starts at £130, and short-term night care after a hospital discharge explains how that works. For somebody who lives alone and is very frail, live-in care starts at £1,050 a week. Ask the ward, too, whether the council's reablement service, which is free for up to six weeks, has been considered, and hourly care after a hospital stay sets a short private arrangement beside it.

PrimeCarers introduces families and self-employed carers to each other. We do not provide or manage care, so the visits, the hours and the rate are agreed between you and the carer. Every carer on the platform has had an identity check, a right to work check and an enhanced DBS check on the Update Service, and an online interview. Their insurance covers them while they work, separately from those checks. We do not check qualifications or training, so ask the carer directly about any experience after heart surgery. When you are ready, you can search carers near your relative's home and compare their rates, reviews and availability, and our pricing explains how the rate and our fee work.