Corporate Heart Health Screening

The conditions we look for are the ones that cause strokes and heart attacks — and a stroke or heart attack in a member of staff in their forties or fifties is rarely a short absence. It is often months away from work, sometimes a permanent change in what that person can do, and occasionally a death in service.

Those events are not inevitable. Detecting and treating atrial fibrillation prevents around two-thirds of the strokes it would otherwise cause. Most people carrying these risks feel entirely well and have no reason to see their GP.

Screening is how you find them while they still feel well. For an employer, that is the practical meaning of a duty of care: not a policy document, but twenty minutes per person and a clear route to treatment for anyone who needs it.

Blood pressure. Around one in three UK adults has high blood pressure, usually without knowing it. Approximately five million adults aged 18 to 64 are living with it undiagnosed, and a further five million in England are diagnosed but not controlled to target.

Atrial fibrillation. Over 1.4 million UK adults have AF and around 30% are undiagnosed. AF raises stroke risk around fivefold, one in five strokes is linked to AF, and AF-related strokes are more likely to be fatal or severely disabling. Up to 15% of strokes occur in people whose AF had never been diagnosed — roughly 30,000 strokes a year in the UK.

Structural heart disease. More than 1.5 million people in the UK are living with heart valve disease. In a UK community study of symptom-free adults over 60 with no known heart disease, echocardiography found valve disease in 28% and clinically significant disease in 2.4%. Valve disease is diagnosed almost entirely by echocardiography, which is usually only requested once symptoms appear or a murmur is heard.

A note on age. Blood pressure and cholesterol findings apply across the working-age population. Atrial fibrillation and valve disease are strongly age-related and uncommon below 60, so in a younger workforce the yield from rhythm and structural assessment is low. We say so rather than selling tiers that will find nothing.

We attend your premises with all equipment. We need a private room in which a participant can lie down and undress to the waist with dignity, and access to handwashing. Each participant receives their results face to face, in plain language, with time to ask questions.

Where an organisation requires it, screening findings can be reviewed by a doctor and issued as a medical report for each participant, alongside the physiologist's assessment and the GP summary letter. This can be arranged for all participants, or reserved for those with abnormal or borderline findings.

Individual results belong to the individual and are never shared with the employer, HR or occupational health without that person's specific written consent. The employer receives an anonymised aggregate report only, with any figure derived from fewer than five participants suppressed so individuals cannot be identified within small teams. Participation is voluntary and non-participation is not reported.

Every participant is told, before consenting, that findings from private screening may be disclosable when they next apply for life insurance, critical illness cover or a mortgage.

Urgent findings follow a defined same-day escalation route agreed in writing before the first session. Findings needing medical action are summarised in writing for the participant's own GP. Participants with no GP follow a route agreed with the employer in advance. Every abnormal result has a named next step and a person attached to it.

The service is led by a cardiac physiologist accredited in echocardiography by the British Society of Echocardiography and the European Association of Cardio-Vascular Imaging, who assesses and examines other practitioners for those bodies, and who has spent years doing blood pressure and atrial fibrillation screening in community settings.

The practical difference is what happens when something turns up. A borderline ECG or an unexpected murmur is interpreted on the spot by someone who reports these findings for a living, rather than triggering a referral that may have been avoidable.

Each package is built around the size of your workforce, the age and risk profile of your staff, the number of sites and the tiers you wish to offer. Pricing is per participant or per session. There is no separate charge for reporting, aggregate analysis or GP summary letters.

For more information and a costed proposal, contact us with your approximate headcount, location and timescale.