Healthy Heart: 2024 report

This is a report on year two of Healthwatch Barnet’s ‘Healthy Heart’ project. The Healthy Heart team work to improve awareness around high blood pressure in Barnet, particularly amongst the African, Caribbean and South Asian communities. The project is part of Barnet Council’s wider Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programme.

From 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2024, the team provided 1191 brief and extended brief interventions to people at drop-in events, and 170 more in-depth interventions during courses and workshops. The majority of events took place in areas with relatively high levels of deprivation. During interventions, the team take participants’ blood pressure, provide them with information and signposting on heart health and have conversations about setting personal goals.

Many people gave feedback about the difficulties they had experienced when seeking to engage with health services and improve their wellbeing. Key challenges included accessing primary care appointments and difficulties with arranging foreign language interpreters for appointments. People also talked about the challenges posed by the cost-of-living crisis to healthy eating, and that dietary advice did not always feel geared towards the culturally specific food they eat.

Following this feedback, the team provided and distributed Gujarati and Somali translations of the Healthy Heart resource pack. The team is also developing culturally tailored healthy eating workshops.