On Thursday, February 24th from 10 am - 3 pm, Heart Valve Voice will be at Edgbaston Street offering free heart checks to the public as well as advice to the people of Birmingham about heart valve disease. Join us on Thursday for the opportunity to have a stethoscope check which detects heart valve disease.
With Covid leading to a fall in the diagnosis of heart valve disease, we will be in Birmingham with a team of experts offering free heart checks.
The team from University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) will include consultants, senior trainees, physiologists and specialist nurses who all care for patients with heart valve disease at UHB, as well as Heart Valve Voice patient advocates. On the day, anyone who is diagnosed with a heart murmur or irregular pulse will be given a letter to share with their GP for further investigations.
The team is collaborating with Valve for Life and UHB to empower patients to access healthcare and raise public awareness of these heart valve conditions.
Heart Valve Voice CEO, Wil Woan, said: “We are looking forward to providing education to the people of Birmingham and hope to raise awareness that a simple stethoscope check could identify important heart disease. On the day, trained cardiologists will be on hand to perform cardiac auscultation and give immediate feedback to members of the public, which could save lives.”
Heart valve disease affects 1.5million people in the UK and can be fatal if untreated. Most serious heart valve disorders can be detected by listening to the heart with a stethoscope. A trained health professional can detect a ‘heart murmur’- an abnormal heart sound - by listening to the heart and this may indicate a heart valve problem. A recent study found that there are approximately 300,000 people in the UK living with severe aortic stenosis. If left untreated, 50% of patients with severe aortic stenosis will die within two years.
See below for our exact location on the day.
