Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

AHSN NENC is delivering a Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Prevention programme, part of which includes two national programmes mandated by NHS England. The programme supports CVD Prevention across the North East and North Cumbria with a particular focus on disordered lipids, familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) and hypertension. The other areas included in the programme are atrial fibrillation (AF) and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

Aims of the CVD Prevention Programme

By collaboratively working with partners, we aim to reduce cardiovascular disease for patients, and minimise inequalities within our population.

Our mission is to ensure patients with disordered lipids are detected and treated appropriately; ensure patients with hypertension are appropriately monitored and have their blood pressure and broader cardiovascular risk optimised; and to ensure AF legacy work from the prior national AF Programme is completed, alongside a local programme focusing on improving earlier diagnosis and treatment of people with CKD.

This will be achieved through collaborative working with the regional health and social care system, to reduce inequalities within our population, providing capability and capacity to meet our objectives.

Benefits

• Prevention of future cardiovascular events, increasing years of wellness.
• Supporting PCNs to achieve their QOF 2023/24.
• Supporting ambitions laid out in the NHS Long Term Plan.
• Increase awareness of patients & clinicians around the common genetic condition, FH.

Programme Delivery

The programme will be delivered in its constituent parts, so for more information on the different elements please click on the appropriate topic in which you are interested.

The programme has a strategy group consisting of key stakeholders from across NENC, who provide support, insight and challenge to enable the programme to be responsive and accountable.

Metrics

Programme metrics have been developed for lipids, FH and hypertension. Success of the programme, however, will depend both on opportunistic and systematic case finding of eligible patients through innovative and validated CVD search tools, adoption and spread of the child parent screening genetic testing pilot, cascade testing, and robust primary and secondary CVD prevention pathway implementation, all seeking to optimise patient lipid management, regardless of which setting their care is delivered in.

NEQOS lead on measurement support for AHSN NENC Population Health Improvement Programmes. This involves presenting  data to the AHSN NENC strategy group. The latest presentation can be seen on the link below.

Download Metrics Presentation

Visual representation of the work can be seen below.

Feedback from local partners

Barry Todd is a North East Pharmacist Practitioner and the Pharmacy Lead at Wallsend Primary Care Network, who has working in partnership with the AHSN NENC to deliver the programme. He said:

“In the 42 years I’ve been a Pharmacist, I’ve never been so excited at the opportunity of breaking down barriers and being able to work collaboratively across all sectors.

“Together we are making a real difference in tackling health care inequalities and driving down cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.”