Vale of York Healthy Hearts | Vale of York's Healthy Hearts

Family Riding Bicycle

Together we can beat heart disease

Vale of York’s Healthy Hearts initiative brings our local GPs and hospital specialists
together to help prevent people having a heart attack or stroke.

Our programme targets:

prevention - particularly focussing on hypertension (high blood pressure)
cardiovascular disease – including patients with high cholesterol, high blood
pressure, diabetes and peripheral arterial disease
managing atrial fibrillation (AF), an abnormal heart rhythm that vastly increases the risk of stroke, through the best possible treatment
there are lots of things you can do yourself to reduce your own risk – see the
Patients Information and Lifestyles section

In the NHS Vale of York CCG area alone, more than 46,000 people are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension) - a leading cause of heart disease and stroke.

We estimate that 34,000 people (one in 10) have high blood pressure but remain undiagnosed, while 7,000 people have an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation) and more than 6,000 people have experienced a stroke or mini-stroke (TIA).

10%of people in the Vale of York have undiagnosed high blood pressure

7,000people have an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation)

6,000people have experienced a stroke or mini-stroke

Our vision for the people of Vale of York...

Dr Shaun O'Connell, the CCG's GP Lead for Acute Service Transformation, explains all about its Healthy Hearts programme - an ambitious programme that, over the next five years, aims to reduce the number of people having heart attacks and strokes and also reduce the number of people dying early from heart or other circulatory disease.

Objectives

We aim to reduce the number of people who die from cardiovascular disease by at least 10%, to include 78 strokes and 102 heart attacks per year by 2022.

By helping people to lower their cholesterol levels we aim to prevent 21 heart attacks and 29 strokes per year. As part of the programme, local GPs are prescribing a more effective statin which reduces cholesterol for people with established cardiovascular
disease.

As part of the programme we are reviewing people who have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation to ensure their coagulation medicines (such as warfarin) are well-managed and maintained.

We are also working on plans to help detect people with high blood pressure and help them manage it more effectively.

Locally, we are working with clinicians from York Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust to review the treatment options available and ensure that the service offered by consultants and GPs is seamless.

People falling into a broken heart

The challenge

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the main causes of death in England – and were responsible for 33% of deaths in 2010. Coronary heart disease and stroke accounted for the majority of those deaths.

In the Vale of York CCG area, circulatory disease is one of the main causes of death with more than 880 deaths each year.

Spending in our local hospitals for urgent care for problems with blood circulation was significantly higher than other similar areas. This suggests we could significantly improve CVD prevention and risk factor management.