Cardiovascular disease prevention

Our work aims to help prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and cases of dementia over the next 10 years, through the early detection and management of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. UCLPartners has a long history of improving detection and management of AF and you could find out more about it here.

Preventing heart attacks and strokes at scale could save thousands of lives. Cardiovascular related diseases currently account for 25 per cent of deaths under the age of 75 and contribute to major health inequalities. We are working closely with our partners to drive system level action and transform the care pathway.

We are working with acute trusts, and primary and community care teams on:

Proactive care

• Building on our work in proactive long-term condition (LTC) management to optimise care in the high-risk conditions for cardiovascular disease: hypertension, atrial fibrillation, lipid management and diabetes. 

Making every contact count

• Optimise detection and treatment of high blood pressure in NHS staff. Statistics show that one in eight staff will have undiagnosed or poorly controlled hypertension and at scale, optimisation will help to prevent significant numbers of heart attacks and strokes.

• Developing new pathways for appropriate investigation & treatment, in cases where in-patients and out-patient’s blood pressure is found to be high.

Improving outcomes for people with serious mental illness

• Identify opportunities to improve CVD outcomes for people with serious mental illness.

Work in collaboration to improve outcome and reduce the health inequalities caused by CVD

• Develop a joint programme across our designations: including research and evaluation opportunities relating to CVD prevention (including familial hypocholesteraemia and genomics pathways and education)