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  • 8 months ago
We’re speaking to Rhodri Thomas from British Heart Foundation Cymru, who says that Welsh heart health is showing the worst figures in 50 years. He says that their latest strategy is hoped to bring the Welsh Government, NHS and people together to help improve our hearts’ health.

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00:01Heart disease is one of the biggest killers facing people all across Wales
00:05and the British Heart Foundation say that according to their most recent figures
00:09heart health is at its lowest rate in 50 years.
00:12Something that they say they want to tackle as part of their most recent strategy
00:16to get people thinking about their hearts and using modern technology to help people live healthier lives.
00:22Research into the issues and modernising the way heart health is combated
00:26is vitally important to BHF and they're confident that their new plan will help people all across the country.
00:32We know that heart health is a huge issue in Wales.
00:35The data shows us it's been the worst start to a decade for heart health in Wales since the 1970s.
00:39So it's a bit of a tragic picture.
00:41But we believe our BHF strategy will be the key to helping everyone in Wales live a healthier life for longer.
00:48So, yeah, the intention of our strategy is to be focusing on medical research,
00:52investing in cutting edge areas like AI, data science, genomics,
00:56that hopefully will prevent, kind of treat and hopefully cure cardiovascular disease.
01:03It's all about collaboration. We can all do our bit to improve our heart health.
01:06The Welsh Government can do their part along with the NHS,
01:09as well as charities like British Heart Foundation,
01:11and want to work together to help people live as healthy as possible,
01:15but also make the most of modern technology and methods of care that can give people early diagnosis,
01:20find hidden problems and generally give people a better chance when fighting against heart disease.
01:25But we need to work in collaboration with Welsh Government, with the NHS to improve care and support.
01:31We want to invest more money in cardiovascular research.
01:34We want to kind of embrace advances in technology.
01:37That's where we want to put our money to look at how kind of artificial intelligence and data science,
01:42hopefully can predict people in Wales that are at risk,
01:46so we can maybe save them before they even become a problem.
01:50And also the ongoing development of the cardiovascular disease prevention program for Wales,
01:55in conjunction with Welsh Government, is a prime opportunity for us to, again,
02:00collaborate with Welsh Government, the NHS and communities across Wales
02:04to improve care and the stats across Wales.
02:09Wales fares badly, generally, in terms of heart health.
02:12We've got an older, sicker population than around the rest of the UK,
02:15and issues within our NHS have pushed the problem further than before.
02:19It's affecting people all across Wales, and with upcoming Senate elections,
02:22the British Heart Foundation say that they want to get heart health at the top of people's priorities,
02:27and see funding to improve their dire situation we're currently facing.
02:31That's partly because of a few issues, we can't put our finger on it,
02:35but I think it's health inequalities across the country,
02:38again, increasingly healthy, unhealthy population,
02:42and obviously the unprecedented kind of pressure on the NHS has affected,
02:48but we are working with Welsh Government and we will be working with Senedd elections
02:53and all the kind of parties building up to next year's election
02:57to make sure that cardiovascular disease is a priority.
03:00what we do is to avoid those numbers.
03:01This is quite a good report on the NHS.
03:05The NHS is very forward to all of our centres that have supported us.
03:06Here we go.
03:07We'll start on the NHS.
03:09We'll come back.
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