Monday 14th August 2023
On Friday, August 18th, Heart Valve Voice and Hull University Hospitals will be offering free heart checks from a pop-up bus in Lower Kingsway, Cleethorpes, in an attempt to address the decrease in diagnosis of heart valve disease.
On Friday, August 18th, from 10 am - 3 pm, Heart Valve Voice will be joined by the Cardiology team from Hull University Hospitals to offer free heart checks to the people of Cleethorpes. The Your Heart Matters bus will be parked in Lower Kingsway, and the team will be there to promote early detection of heart valve disease and raise awareness of this common, serious, but treatable condition.
The team from Hull University Hospital will include consultants, senior trainees, physiologists and specialist nurses who all care for patients with heart valve disease, as well as Heart Valve Voice patient advocates. On the day, anyone diagnosed with a heart murmur or irregular pulse will be given a letter to take to their GP for further investigations.
Heart Valve Voice CEO Wil Woan said: “We look forward to educating the people of Cleethorpes on heart disease 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, which may indicate a heart valve problem. A recent study found 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.
Heart valve disease in the UK is often undetected because heart auscultation (listening to the heart) is performed less frequently than elsewhere. This has been compounded by the impact of COVID-19 with fewer patients accessing face-to-face consultations and so less opportunity to detect heart valve disease with a stethoscope.
Consultant Cardiologist, Dr Jonathan Byrne, said: “It is a sad fact that Covid has led to a decrease in diagnosis of this common, serious, but treatable condition. This is an opportunity for the people of Cleethropes to talk to the team and have their heart checked by experts. I would encourage anyone over the age of 50 to come down, talk to the team and have their heart listened to. That simple stethoscope check could save their life.”