Taking cardiac health into Warm Welcome Spaces, to the heart of communities

Tabinda Rashid Fadel’s story.

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“I’m a cardiac physiologist by background, I work in Bristol. The idea behind this piece of work with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire is that we work directly with communities. We don’t wait for an individual to come into a GP practice to have a blood pressure or diabetes or cholesterol check, we go directly to the communities.

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“We contact people like the Warm Welcome Campaign to say that we can work with you in places of worship, and in various settings, in shopping centres, community centres etc. We want to test people; we want people to come forward and have their blood pressure checked and support them to reduce their risk for CVD.

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“We are a group of clinicians who deliver this service, we take a good history, and we will encourage people to improve their lifestyle.

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“Our work is two-fold. We test everybody. And secondly, we focus on vulnerable groups. Thirty-five percent of our events have been for vulnerable groups, for people like the elderly, for adults who perhaps have learning difficulties, or poor mental health – different reasons why they wouldn’t or couldn’t engage with the health service.

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“The Welcome Spaces have been absolutely fantastic; 25% of our events have been in Welcome Spaces. We’ve been to more than 55 coffee mornings, or lunch events; we’ve been into food clubs.

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“The communities absolutely love it, the fact that we come to them to deliver health. They love it because they don’t have to go out and make an appointment with their GP; we will refer them if there is something that we find.

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“Since March 2024, we have delivered 78 events, and we have been inundated by people coming forward saying come and use our space.

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“Although we are funded by the NHS to deliver this programme, we have been able to stretch that funding because we haven’t had to pay for sites. We can change things around so that the model is right for a particular community.

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“We don’t need to be in a closed room. We like to be in an open space so people can see what we’re doing and then, before we know it, they’ve had their blood pressure checked, and they’ve had a consultation.

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“It really does work so a big thank you that we’ve been able to work with the Warm Welcome Campaign to be able to do it. Eighty percent of CVD risk factors can be managed by introducing a lifestyle adjustment.

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“If we were to test everybody, we would find that 20% of people are walking around with a risk factor that they didn’t know about. If we were working with high-risk groups, that can be as high as 42%.”

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Warm Welcome Campaign Director David Barclay said: “This is such a win win for everybody. For the people running the spaces, to be able to have people like you and your colleagues coming in, is a huge benefit that the spaces can provide and it’s another way of attracting people to come to the space.

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“Clearly there’s a big win for the individuals in terms of their health. But also, it’s really interesting to think about the win that this represents for the health system in terms of being able to reach those different communities and the idea of prevention.

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“A big part of fixing the NHS is about getting healthcare out into the community and you’re blazing a trail, Tabinda, in how to do that practically. Thank you for all that you’ve done. We would encourage other integrated care boards to take a similar approach.”