They could help save lives by promoting awareness around keeping the heart healthy to prevent ill-health in their community.

Volunteers have been learning how to take blood pressure at St George’s so they can offer the checks to people who visit and use their services across the Wakefield District.

The initiative, launched by Wakefield Council and West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, aims to help identify people with high blood pressure, also known as hyper-tension. The condition often has no symptoms but puts people at increased risk of heart disease, strokes and premature death.

The Wakefield Public Health team have looked at the local data and believe that there are lots of people who are unaware of their blood pressure and who could benefit from having it checked.

Jo Webster, Wakefield District Health & Care Partnership Accountable Officer, said: “Early detection of risk factors is crucial to helping prevent heart disease and our network of Blood Pressure Wellbeing Champions will be a huge support in enabling us to do this. They will complement our ‘Healthy Hearts Community Hubs’ where we are also providing blood pressure checks and personalised support away from a formal medical setting. As a district, cardiovascular disease prevention is a key priority to improve the health outcomes for all our residents and through community support we can improve quality of life, reduce hospital readmissions and save lives.”

‍The project has been funded partly via funding through the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and Wakefield Council and builds on another Healthy Hearts Community Hub initiative.

Nova is pleased to be involved with this project as part of our work to secure resources for the sector. We secured ICB funding in order to promote awareness of cardiovascular disease and blood pressure rates through the Community Anchor Network, with St George's taking up the contract. Anchors are now linking in with the initiative to promote Blood Pressure Champions in the community venues as an early alert service.