West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) prevention programme delivered a successful campaign for know your numbers week.
Know your numbers is a national campaign led by Blood Pressure UK, to increase awareness of the importance of blood pressure checking, monitoring and understanding what the numbers mean.
Cardiovascular disease is the biggest contributor to widening health inequalities. Across West Yorkshire it is estimated 600,000 people have high blood pressure (hypertension), but only half know they have it. Left untreated high blood pressure can increase the chances significantly of a person having a heart attack of stroke.
Know your numbers week brought together a true system partnership of stakeholders including NHSE, ICB, local authority public health, Community Pharmacy, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Health Innovation (AHSN), Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise (VCSE) and University of Huddersfield.
The campaign was launched with a video of support from Rob Webster, Chief Executive of West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. Emily Turner the CVD Prevention Clinical Lead for West Yorkshire was interviewed by Radio Leeds and Bradford Radio. The week also saw the launch of the first Healthy Hearts Community Hub, a Wakefield place-based project working with the ICB, local PCN health and wellbeing coaches and the NHSE peer leadership team and peer leaders. 14 people attended for blood pressure checks, 4 loaned a home blood pressure monitor to continue monitoring for 7 days as the initial reading was high. We also delivered two webinars one for health care professionals – Managing hypertension in special groups and the other was a public webinar aimed at increasing the public’s understanding of blood pressure. The sessions evaluated really well and we saw a significant increase in knowledge and understanding from those who attended.
Together blood pressure checks were carried out in workplaces, wellness services, White Rose Shopping Centre, Leeds Kirkgate Market, Huddersfield Police Station, Mondays at the Museum in Kirklees and for staff at YAS headquarters. A total of 751 blood pressure checks were completed, 213 (28%) needed onward referral either to community pharmacy, General Practice or in a small number of cases where high blood pressure was detected with additional symptoms advice was to visit Accident and Emergency.
What’s next?
The campaign has created an opportunity to embed blood pressure checks in services as business as usual. From the campaign mini health checks are being provided alongside flu vaccinations at White Rose House in Wakefield over the autumn, and public health teams are considering where they can support further through opportunities in other settings such as smoking cessation and wellness services.
We are also planning a workshop in the near future to create some strategic objectives with our system stakeholders for cardiovascular disease prevention, other long term conditions and prevention.
