About the project

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affects 7.6 million people in the UK, accounts for > 100,000 admissions and costs £9 billion per year with wider economic impact of £19 billion per year. Cardiac rehabilitation is a proven intervention, but despite being recommended for decades in national and international guidelines, overall participation rates are <50% and even lower in some communities. (NACR Quality and Outcomes Report 2019).

The purpose of this work is to support Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB) to gain an understanding of the reasons for low participation of cardiac rehab for individuals in seldom heard communities who have suffered a cardiovascular event. This will then inform recommendations to Birmingham and Solihull ICB, with the overall ambition to increase population uptake across their footprint.

The active participation of patients is central to the success to this project which combines user-led innovation, human factors (HF) and quality improvement approaches. User led co-production will ensure that the pinch points and barriers to uptake are specified and addressed. Furthermore, redesign informed by HF will result in an intervention optimised for uptake and implementation. Meaningful engagement of the target communities should change behaviour and optimise uptake.

Project ambitions

• Use a patient feedback questionnaire developed with a Human Factors (HF) approach to target primary, community, charity, and faith organisations who will distribute to individuals in seldom heard communities who have suffered a cardiovascular event. The responses will provide insight as to why the uptake of rehab is low. 
• Identify the barriers to uptake and then co-develop an adjusted programme that will increase participation combining service user and provider input with HF. 

Additional resources

Project partners 

Birmingham and Solihull ICB

Find out more

Get in touch with a member of the project team below to find out how you can get involved.