According to the British Heart Foundation, every three minutes someone in the UK dies from cardiovascular disease. It accounts for around one in four deaths, and with over 7.6 million people currently living with heart and circulatory conditions, the scale of the issue remains significant. Despite advances in treatment and improved survival rates, cardiovascular disease continues to place enormous pressure on individuals, families and the wider healthcare system. It is clear that this is not a problem we can afford to ignore.
This is exactly why we have a dedicated Heart Month. February marks a national campaign focused on bringing cardiovascular health into sharper focus. The scale and ongoing impact of heart and circulatory disease make this awareness not just useful, but necessary. Heart Month exists to highlight the wide range of conditions linked to cardiovascular disease and to promote practical, evidence based steps that can reduce risk and prevent avoidable illness.
For the public, it offers an opportunity to reflect on personal risk factors, lifestyle choices and whether routine checks are up to date. For healthcare professionals, particularly those working in primary care, it serves as a timely reminder of the vital role we play in identifying risk early and supporting long term heart health. While awareness campaigns may last for a month, the work of prevention continues throughout the year.
Heart disease rarely develops suddenly. It builds gradually, often silently, over many years. By the time symptoms appear, underlying damage may already have progressed. This is why prevention and early intervention are not optional extras but essential components of care. Across primary care settings in the UK, this work is already taking place every day. Heart Month provides a moment to recognise that impact and reinforce the importance of continuing it.
Heart Month is a national awareness campaign focused on improving understanding of cardiovascular disease and encouraging preventative action. It exists because, despite advances in treatment and improved survival rates, heart and circulatory diseases remain one of the leading causes of death and long term illness in the UK. The purpose is simple but significant: to keep heart health visible, relevant and prioritised.
Throughout February, a range of initiatives take place across healthcare settings and communities nationwide. These campaigns help bring complex health issues into everyday conversation and create meaningful opportunities for education. They typically combine public awareness, community engagement and professional focused initiatives. Activities may vary each year, but often include national media campaigns, promotion of NHS Health Checks, educational resources, workplace initiatives and digital engagement tools.
Within these campaigns, key prevention messages are consistently reinforced. These include maintaining a balanced diet, increasing physical activity, reducing alcohol intake, stopping smoking and attending routine health checks. Although these messages are not new, repetition is important. Behaviour change rarely happens after a single discussion. Consistent and visible reminders increase the likelihood that individuals will reflect on their own risk and consider practical steps to reduce it.
Importantly, Heart Month is not solely about individual responsibility. It also highlights the systems and services already in place to support prevention. From structured NHS Health Checks to chronic disease management within primary care, there are established pathways designed to identify risk early and intervene appropriately. The campaign provides a platform to remind the public that support is available and accessible.
Ultimately, Heart Month exists because cardiovascular disease continues to have a profound impact across the UK. Raising awareness is not about creating alarm. It is about ensuring that prevention, early identification and informed decision making remain central to both public health strategy and everyday clinical practice.
For the public, Heart Month serves as a reminder that heart and circulatory disease often develops quietly, without obvious warning signs. Some people may feel completely well while risk factors such as high blood pressure, raised cholesterol or early insulin resistance are already present. By the time symptoms appear, damage may have progressed. This is why awareness matters.
Understanding personal risk is the first step towards prevention. Age, family history and genetics all play a role. However, many of the strongest contributors to cardiovascular disease are modifiable. Smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, obesity, excess alcohol intake and poorly controlled diabetes significantly increase risk. When people are given clear, accessible information, they are better placed to make informed decisions about their health.
Heart Month encourages individuals to reflect on practical questions:
Small pieces of information can have a significant impact. Identifying raised blood pressure early, for example, allows for monitoring, lifestyle advice and treatment before complications occur.
For many people, cardiovascular disease can feel distant until it affects them or someone close to them. Awareness campaigns help bridge that gap. They highlight that prevention is not only about responding to illness, but about reducing risk long before a clinical event happens.
Importantly, prevention does not require dramatic changes overnight. Gradual improvements in diet, regular physical activity, smoking cessation and engagement with routine health checks can meaningfully reduce long term risk. When individuals understand that cardiovascular health is influenced by everyday choices, and that support is available through primary care services, prevention becomes more achievable and realistic.
In the UK, cardiovascular prevention is not left to chance. There are structured systems in place designed to identify risk early, intervene appropriately and reduce avoidable complications. While awareness campaigns help bring attention to the issue, long term prevention relies on consistent, evidence based services embedded within primary care.
One of the most established national initiatives is the NHS Health Check programme. Offered to adults aged 40 to 74 who do not already have diagnosed cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, the health check assesses blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index, smoking status and diabetes risk. A QRISK score is then calculated to estimate an individual’s likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease over the next ten years. This structured approach allows for early identification of those at increased risk and creates an opportunity for targeted intervention before a clinical event occurs.
Alongside the NHS Health Check programme, routine primary care reviews play a central role. Patients with diagnosed hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease or established cardiovascular disease are monitored regularly through chronic disease management frameworks. These reviews allow for medication optimisation, blood pressure monitoring, lipid management and reinforcement of lifestyle advice.
National guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence outlines thresholds for intervention, appropriate use of statins, blood pressure targets and risk assessment tools. This ensures that prevention strategies remain consistent, structured and grounded in current evidence.
In addition to formal programmes, opportunistic screening remains a powerful tool. Blood pressure checks during routine appointments, medication reviews or vaccination clinics can uncover previously undiagnosed hypertension. Conversations around weight, smoking or physical activity, when handled appropriately, can prompt earlier lifestyle changes.
Together, these systems form a coordinated approach to cardiovascular prevention. While no single intervention eliminates risk entirely, early detection, ongoing monitoring and access to evidence based care significantly reduce the likelihood of heart attack, stroke and other serious complications. Heart Month serves as a reminder that these pathways already exist and that encouraging engagement with them is one of the most effective steps the public can take.
While Heart Month is often framed as a public campaign, its relevance within primary care is practical and immediate. It creates a clear opportunity to re emphasise cardiovascular risk in everyday consultations and to use the national focus as a prompt for engagement.
Patients may be more receptive to conversations about heart health when it is visible in the media and public discourse. Heart Month can make discussions about blood pressure, cholesterol or lifestyle feel timely and purposeful rather than routine. For clinicians, this month can act as a checkpoint:
These are not new responsibilities, but Heart Month provides a natural moment to review systems and identify potential gaps. It also reinforces the importance of consistent messaging. When national campaigns promote lifestyle changes, primary care teams are well placed to translate those broad messages into personalised advice. This link between national awareness and individual care is where prevention becomes meaningful.
There is also value in being able to revisit these conversations over time. Continuity within primary care allows patients space to process information, ask further questions and build confidence in decisions about their health. It creates an environment where concerns about medication, lifestyle change or cardiovascular risk can be explored honestly rather than resolved in a single discussion.
This ongoing relationship is particularly important in prevention, where progress is often gradual. Improvements in weight, physical activity or smoking cessation rarely happen immediately. Regular review provides accountability, encouragement and adjustment when needed.
Heart Month is not about adding pressure or creating additional workload. It is about aligning public awareness with clinical practice. When campaigns and consultation rooms work in parallel, the impact of both is strengthened.
Cardiovascular disease continues to have a significant impact across the UK, affecting millions of people and accounting for a substantial proportion of preventable deaths each year. While treatment has advanced and survival rates have improved, prevention remains the most powerful tool we have.
Heart Month exists to keep that focus clear. It brings national attention to heart health, reinforces key public health messages and encourages individuals to engage with the services already available to them. For the public, it is a reminder to reflect on lifestyle, risk factors and routine checks. For primary care professionals, it is an opportunity to strengthen the work that is already embedded in everyday practice.
Much of cardiovascular prevention happens quietly. It takes place during routine blood pressure checks, medication reviews, health checks and ongoing conversations about lifestyle. These interactions may seem small in isolation, but collectively they have a profound impact on long term outcomes.
Heart Month may last for February, but the importance of early identification, risk assessment and clear communication continues throughout the year. By maintaining a consistent focus on prevention and supporting patients to understand and reduce their risk, primary care remains central to reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease across the UK.
For clinicians who would like to strengthen their confidence in cardiovascular risk assessment and structured prevention, further training can be valuable. Refreshing knowledge around NHS Health Checks, QRISK calculation and current NICE guidance helps ensure consultations remain evidence based and consistent.
Health Academy’s NHS Health Checks course is designed to support clinicians in delivering accurate risk assessments, communicating cardiovascular risk clearly and translating national guidance into practical, day to day primary care. Ongoing professional development not only supports individual practice but also strengthens the overall impact of prevention within primary care. Click on the links below to find out more and register your interest.
Our ‘NHS Health Check: Foundation Training for Healthcare Professionals’ course provides essential training for healthcare professionals in primary care. Developed in line with national guidance, it teaches how to perform a variety of assessments to determine a client’s risk and understand how to communicate this risk to reduce their chances of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and certain types of dementia.
Sold Out
Our ‘NHS Health Check for Healthcare Professionals’ update course provides essential training for healthcare professionals in primary care. Developed in line with national guidance, it reinforces how to perform a variety of assessments in order to determine a client’s risk and understand how to communicate this risk to reduce their chances of developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and certain types of dementia.
Sold Out
Giving you written and video content to answer all your questions on primary care education from Phlebotomy to Travel Health.
Subscribe now to be kept updated with our latest posts and insights.
Start typing to search courses, articles, videos, and more.
