Advanced Cardiovascular Health Screening & ‘one-stop’ diagnostic clinic

‘Your car is serviced annually to keep it working optimally … why not your body?’

Many companies offer an annual health check to their employees. While these can help to identify risk factors, they tend to be quite broad and basic in scope. More importantly for you, they often don’t then lead on to a clear treatment/solution. Bluntly, most people don’t leave an annual health check with a clear personalised action plan to improve their health and reduce any risk factors as much as possible. (If you’ve previously had one of these health checks, did you leave with an action plan?)

I firmly believe that you deserve better than this.

The difference

The one-stop Advanced Cardiovascular Health Screening service at Sulis Hospital Bath is our way of providing you with an assessment of your cardiovascular health and truly practical help for improvement. In this 90-minute clinic, we use advanced non-invasive diagnostic tests to enhance the information we have about any cardiovascular conditions and cardiovascular risks you may have. We then use this information to create a custom treatment pathway for you.

For busy people (and who isn’t busy nowadays?), this clinic provides you with comprehensive diagnostics, assessments and tailored reporting in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise. It is a really efficient pathway, especially compared to alternative options, where you may have five or six different appointments and tests, usually spread over a number of days and weeks (and sometimes months).

We work in a very different way, trying to anticipate how we can best help you before we even meet you. For example, if we have a robust referral from your GP or another healthcare professional, sometimes we will contact you for a remote mini consultation beforehand to plan and understand exactly what will be required in terms of tests etc. when you visit with us. We are constantly asking ourselves how we can help to minimise the time you have to take out of your busy schedule. As far as we know, no one else provides this level of ‘customer service’.

Why visit?

People visit with us for Advanced Cardiovascular Health Screening for a wide variety of reasons. You may be concerned because there is a history of heart disease in your family. Maybe you’re conscious that you’ve been so busy caught up ‘doing life’, you’re aware that your health isn’t as good as you’d like it to be. Perhaps you’ve been told you have high blood pressure or raised cholesterol and are wondering what lifestyle changes may be helpful in getting these under control.

Many simply come to us for an annual check-up or are persuaded (sometimes gifted!) by loved ones. You can directly self-refer – your car is serviced annually to keep it working optimally … why not your body?

There is a lot of information around about heart health and it can be quite easy to feel overwhelmed. We will always provide you with the health information you need to know along with practical, easy-to-understand actions and steps you can take to improve your cardiovascular health and fitness.

Whatever your reason for coming to see us for the Advanced Cardiovascular Health Screening, everything is tailored to your specific needs.

What happens when you visit?

On the day that you come for your screening, we will often be able to provide you with diagnostic tests in parallel with your consultation. (In the interest of full disclosure, while it is called a ‘one-stop screening’, there may be certain diagnostics that will require you to go home with certain equipment and then bring it back to us later for review. If CT or MRI scanning is recommended, this would be a separate appointment.)

In practice, we have found that we’ve been able to halve the ‘patient pathway’ in terms of touchpoints and efficiency. This is something that we’re really proud of, primarily because we know it makes things so much easier for you. In fact, a lot of patients who have been through this screening tell me that it is just so much easier and more convenient than their previous experiences.

Part of our focus with this screening is to clarify any issues that may have been flagged up in any previous tests. For example, a traditional health screening may show that you have high blood pressure and recommend you make generic changes, often with a default path that leads to tablet treatments. It probably won’t then take the logical (and useful) next step of telling you exactly what changes to make at a personalised and holistic level. We do.

We also use our state-of-the-art, non-invasive diagnostics to examine your heart and see if there is any damage to it or if it is showing signs of change. Not only is this a much more enhanced and advanced screening than what is provided routinely, we are also then able to provide you with robust solutions to manage or treat any issues.

Common diagnostics performed:

• 12 lead ECG
• Specialised blood tests
• Echocardiography – latest scanner (ultrasound scanning of the heart)
• Heart rhythm monitoring
• Exercise stress tests
• 24-hour blood pressure testing (very useful for those with ‘white coat’ syndrome
• CT coronary angiogram or CT coronary calcium scoring

When you visit with us, we will assess your cardiovascular health and determine whether there are any areas to pay attention to. I will then talk through the results of any diagnostics and you can ask me any questions you have. I will always work with you to help you achieve the best outcomes possible.

Learn more about our one-stop advanced cardiovascular health screening service

If you would like to learn more about how our screening service can help you, please contact my PA, ‘Tash’ (Natasha Jones), on 01761 422287. Tash will be able to answer your questions and book your screening in for a time that is convenient to you.