The Festival was a great opportunity to launch our new and improved Green Hearts brochure which includes valuable information on looking after your heart. The updated brochure features a section focusing on women and heart health, an area that is often overlooked.
It also provides a lot of other important information such as key questions to ask your GP, guidance on how to measure and track your own blood pressure and a 30-day habit tracker to help build healthier routines.
Throughout the day, the Green Hearts team offered free blood pressure checks to the public and nearly 100 people took the chance to be checked through the day.
The team identified a number of concerning readings and those individuals have been followed up to ensure they seek further care with their GP.
One visitor remarked, “I haven’t had my blood pressure checked in ten years so it’s about time I did it.”
Another attendee shared,
“I went off my blood pressure medication a year ago and found out today that it’s high again so I’ll be going back to my GP.”
These comments highlight how valuable these pop-ups are in encouraging people to take action for their health.
Ellen Gavin, Health and Wellbeing Manager at Irish in Britain reflected on the day’s success saying:
“St Patrick’s Day gives us a brilliant opportunity to engage directly with the community and promote heart health awareness.
"Seeing so many people take advantage of our blood pressure checks and hearing how it’s encouraged them to follow up with their GP reinforces the importance of this work.
"Our new Green Hearts brochure is an important tool in helping people take charge of their heart health and we’re excited to share it more widely.”
Volunteers
We were also delighted to be joined by Valerie Nangle, Green Hearts Training Facilitator, as well as Bronagh and Lainey from Spotlight Health, a health screening and diagnostic clinic in London.
They generously volunteered their time to assist with the blood pressure checks bringing valuable expertise and support to the day.
Valerie said,
‘The ability to engage with a large number of people across different age groups to monitor blood pressure and to educate them on the risk of hypertension and heart disease is invaluable. We are always encouraged by the positive reception and engagement we receive.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by, interacted with us and took home our new brochure.
Your engagement made the event such a success and reinforced the importance of continuing our heart health awareness work in the community.
We look forward to building on this momentum and keeping heart health at the forefront of our outreach.
Click here to view the PDF version of our new Green Hearts Booklet
Find out more about heart health on our Green Hearts page