West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts | West Yorkshire Harrogate Healthy Hearts

Together we can beat heart disease

The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts project aims to reduce the impact of cardiovascular disease and save lives in our region by helping to prevent people from having a heart attack or stroke.

The project is delivered by the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network working in partnership with the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership and the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups in Leeds, Wakefield, Harrogate and District, North Kirklees, Greater Huddersfield, Bradford City and Districts, Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven.

Our project aims:

to reduce the number of cardiovascular incidents such as heart attacks and strokes in our area by over 10% by 2021
to prevent 800 heart attacks and 350 strokes over the course of the programme
to save the local health economy more than £12 million pounds

In the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership area alone, more than 600,000 people are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension) - a leading cause of heart disease and stroke.

We estimate that 256,000 people (9.8%) have high blood pressure but remain undiagnosed, while 60,517 people have an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation) and nearly 49,000 people have experienced a stroke or mini-stroke (TIA).

9.8%of people in West Yorkshire and Harrogate have undiagnosed high blood pressure

60,000 people have an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation)

49,000people have experienced a stroke or mini-stroke

Hear from Sadhana Press who was diagnosed with heart disease.

One You

One You

Our objectives:

Reduce the impact of heart disease and diabetes

Prevent the number of heart-related illness

Reduce the number of people experiencing heart disease by 10% across our area by 2021

People falling into a broken heart

The challenge

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the main cause of death in England –and were responsible for 33% of deaths in 2010. Coronary heart disease and stroke accounted for the majority of those deaths.

In West Yorkshire and Harrogate, heart disease is one of the main causes of death, claiming an average of 975 lives each year.

Spending in our local hospitals for urgent care for problems with blood circulation was significantly higher than other similar areas. This suggests we could significantly improve CVD prevention and risk-factor management.