Recipient organisationNIHR Wellcome Trust Manchester Clinical Research Facility
NIHR supportRecorded as supported by this research centre
PeriodJan 2025 — Ongoing
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Every six years, the UK checks whether its doctors are actually following the official guidelines for preventing heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes—and the last check found a wide gap between what the guidelines recommend and what happens in practice. This matters because cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death and disability, yet many of its risk factors—high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor diet, smoking, and undiagnosed diabetes or kidney disease—are manageable with lifestyle changes and medication. The previous survey showed that many patients were not hitting those targets. The new survey, Aspire to Action (2023–2025), will repeat the check in both hospital coronary patients and high-risk individuals in primary care, adding assessments of blood sugar and kidney function for the first time. If the survey finds that preventive care has improved, it will validate current efforts and provide a benchmark for other countries. If it finds persistent gaps, it will give cardiologists and GPs concrete evidence of where their practice falls short—and where to focus training, resources, or system changes. The result is a quiet but essential piece of public health infrastructure: a regular, objective audit of whether prevention is actually happening.
View original technical description
EUROASPIRE VI/Aspire to Action is a multicentre UK study in coronary patients and individuals at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), describing their management through lifestyle and use of drug therapies and providing an objective assessment of clinical implementation of current scientific knowledge. It is part of a larger European survey called EUROASPIRE VI. Since 1995, five EUROASPIRE surveys have been carried out by the European Society of Cardiology. The United Kingdom participated in all of these surveys except EUROASPIRE I. The UK part of EUROASPIRE V was called Aspire 3 Prevent. The results showed a wide gap between the recommendations and clinical practice with many patients not achieving the lifestyle and medical risk factors goals for CVD prevention. The Aspire to Action survey is planned for 2023-2025 to determine in hospital coronary patients and apparently healthy individuals in primary care at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease whether the European and national guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention have been followed and if the practice of preventive cardiology in Aspire to Action has improved by comparison with those centres which took part in previous surveys. This survey will also incorporate an assessment of dysglycaemia and kidney function in all patients. The main outcome measures will be the proportions of coronary and high cardiovascular risk patients achieving the lifestyle, risk factor and therapeutic targets for cardiovascular disease prevention. The data collection will be based on a review of patient medical records and a patient interview and examination at least 6 months and at most 2 years after recruiting event. This surveywill give a unique picture of preventive action by cardiologists and primary care physicians lookingafter patients with coronary disease and individuals at high CVD risk.
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