Cardiac rehabilitation is an eight-week exercise and education program for people who are recovering from a heart event. The weekly education and exercise sessions assist people to recover by:

  • Safely increasing physical activity levels
  • Helping manage cardiac symptoms
  • Supporting a return to work and everyday activities.
  • Providing information about preventing further heart disease
What does the program involve?

The cardiac rehabilitation program offers individualised assessment with a rehabilitation physician, cardiac nurse and exercise physiologist. Achievable health goals are developed with you and you will be provided with an individualised exercise program.

Each week the program offers an education session. These include:

  • Heart disease (Cardiac Nurse): How the heart works, heart disease and treatments.
  • Medications (Pharmacist): Common heart medications, medication safety and side effects.
  • Healthy eating (Dietitian): Healthy eating guidelines, food myths and reading product labels.
  • Risk factors and chest pain action plan (Cardiac Nurse): Understanding your risks, managing your chest pain and what to do in an emergency.
  • Physical activity (Exercise Physiologist): Physical activity guidelines, benefits of exercise and overcoming barriers.
  • Heart emotions (Social Worker): Emotional recovery from a heart event, depression, anxiety and stress management.
  • Relaxation and returning to activities (Occupational Therapy): Relaxation techniques and returning to daily activities.

Conditions seen

Barwon Health offers a Cardiac Rehabilitation program for people who are recovering from a heart event, such as:

  • heart attack
  • angina
  • cardiac bypass/valve surgery
  • angioplasty/stent

Conditions not seen

Barwon Health Cardiac Rehabilitation Program does not accept referrals for the following:

  • Cardiac failure.
  • Assessment for the purpose of Disability Support Pension (DSP) or National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) applications.

How do I access this service

To be seen in this clinic you need to be referred by a health professional, your GP, another specialist doctor or your Barwon Health doctor.

We are unable to see you in our clinics without a referral.

Wait time

All requests for specialist clinic appointments are scheduled according to the patient’s clinical need. Clinicians assess whether an appointment is urgent or routine, based on information provided in the referral.

Barwon Health aims to see all ‘urgent’ referrals within 30 days. Our wait times for patients who are categorised as ‘routine’ are more variable, depending on the demand for our services.

The projected wait time listed below are only estimated timeframes for routine (non-urgent) patients.

Speciality
Projected wait time

No Wait times to show

For Health Professionals

State-referral criteria may apply for conditions under this specialty requiring further assessment and management. Referring clinicians are encouraged to utilise Western Victoria Community HealthPathways for referral guidelines and requirements for all conditions.

Complete the specialist clinics referral template and send via:

  • ReferralNet
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Fax: 03 4215 6376 (McKellar Community Rehabilitation Centre)
  • Post: PO Box 281, Geelong VIC 3220

Referral templates for Barwon Health services are available for importing into Best Practice, Medical Director or ZedMed. Please see the Referral templates page for the most up-to-date forms.

If you do not use the above clinical software, please complete a referral letter on your practice/health service letterhead, ensuring all required referral information is included.

If you need to contact us regarding the templates, please contact the GP Liaison Unit on 03 4215 8845 or [email protected].

For patients who require reassessment, a new referral should be sent through. To facilitate earlier access, the new referral must contain the following information:

  • State the referral is an update for a current patient
  • Date of original referral
  • Reason for requesting a review of referral (e.g. deterioration in clinical condition, pathology)

The referrer will be notified of the outcome of the re-triage process.

GPs or referring doctors wishing to discuss the triage of their patient’s referral, or who require additional information, please ring the Cardiac Rehabilitation team 03 4215 0421.

Page last updated: September 9, 2025