The Chief Officer of the Bradford City, Bradford Districts and Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Groups will submit Document “V” which provides an overview of the challenges Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Group faced with regards to cardiovascular disease (CVD), the actions it has taken and the outcomes seen to date.

It will also describe the lessons learned and next steps in the programme and seek support from the Board to deliver its longer term aims.

The Health and Wellbeing Board are asked to consider how the lessons learnt from the Bradford Healthy Hearts programme could be applied to the priorities of the revised Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2017-2022 (in development).

                                                                        (Kath Helliwell – 01274 237290)

The Chief Officer of the Bradford City, Bradford Districts and Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Groups submitted Document “V” which provided an overview of the challenges Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Group faced with regards to cardiovascular disease (CVD), the actions it had taken and the outcomes seen to date.

It also described the lessons learned and next steps in the programme and sought support from the Board to deliver its longer term aims.

Three representatives of the cardio-vascular team attended the meeting and gave a detailed PowerPoint presentation on the “Bradford Healthy Hearts” initiative.

The Board then discussed the initiative in detail, congratulating the team that it had saved the lives of 211 people across the District. In response to questions, it was confirmed that letters sent to patients who required statins were sent out on a targeted basis and that the postal drop had been co-designed with GP practices in order to utilise the trust in place between GPs and their patients.

The representative of the Bradford Districts and City Clinical Commissioning Group stressed that patient groups involved in the process had urged the team to be bold with the information that they provided. One of the team concurred with that and highlighted that the public appetite for good quality clinical information was huge.

A Board Member also queried whether there was available investment and was informed that as the evidence showed that such projects were very successful it created an appetite for investment and encouraged taking that risk in other areas. The next initiative to be launched would be in respect of “Bradford Breathing Better”.

Members were advised that additional work was also being planned in collaboration with the British Heart Foundation to find more people with blood pressure issues and to work on other aspirations in respect of that treatment and of dealing with heart failure.

In response to questions about how the initiative had proved so successful, the Board was informed that a specific decision had been taken to have a single focus on one issue that would make a big difference. The initiative had been slow to start but all resources had been aligned and directed to achieve one outcome. The Chair noted that there was a lesson to be learned in respect of the success that could come from focussing on a big issue.

The Deputy Chair highlighted that the initiative had won awards and that part of that success had been a result of knowing the community well. A problem with extending the work to the City Centre CCG area to identify at-risk individuals who may not be known was that elements of the population were more transient and that, therefore, it could be difficult to identify at-risk people as they were not necessarily known to services, therefore a different approach would be needed. This could include approaching appropriate faith centres, the voluntary sector, pharmacists and taxi firms.

Members of the Board also noted that they were encouraged to try the same principles as had been used in the healthy hearts initiative in other areas of operation as it had been so successful.

The Chair concluded the discussion by summing up that the presentation had highlighted the usefulness of engaging with peoples’ desire to change; the positive outcomes that could come from shock tactics to alert people to the high level of risk they faced; the benefits to focussing on one major issue; the benefit of knowing the community well and the positive relationship between risk and reward.

She noted that the Board had been asked to consider how the lessons learnt from the Bradford Healthy Hearts programme could be applied to the priorities of the revised Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2017-2022 and stated that the Board would be discussing that strategy in the next item.

ACTION: Chief Officer, Bradford Districts and Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Groups