Assembly Member for Clwyd West, Darren Millar, this week lent support to the ‘Know Your Pulse’ campaign to help raise awareness about Atrial Fibrillation (AF), the most common heart rhythm disorder in the UK at the launch of the ‘Keeping our Finger on the Pulse’ report.
The campaign, spearheaded by the charity, the Atrial Fibrillation Association (AFA), aims to raise awareness of this debilitating condition and reach out to the public, parliamentarians and clinical experts.
At a meeting at the Welsh National Assembly, Darren Millar was briefed by the AFA about Atrial Fibrillation and had a picture taken with a ‘giant calculator’ (see attached) which estimates that 830 people here in the Clwyd West constituency suffer from AF.
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disturbance encountered by doctors. In Wales, patients diagnosed with AF took up almost 308,000 bed days in 2008 at a cost of more than £150 million to health and social care budgets. At a time when the public purse strings are being tightened, this is a significant cost.
The risk of developing AF rises sharply with advancing age, roughly doubling with each decade of age, from 0.5% of people aged between 50-59 years visiting their GP, rising to almost 9% for those aged 80 to 89.
‘Keeping our Finger on the Pulse’ is an up to date analysis of why Wales must address the personal, clinical and economic impact of Atrial Fibrillation.
Simple pulse checks with GPs are a quick, and low cost way of detecting AF. That is why the AFA are calling on people who are worried they might be suffering from AF to book a simple check up with their GP. The AFA are also calling for pulse checks to be made a routine procedure when someone visits their GP.
Darren Millar AM said:
“Estimates show that over 800 people in Clwyd West could have atrial fibrillation, which is an astonishing figure. What’s more, many more people may have the condition but haven’t been diagnosed. Atrial fibrillation needs to be understood by both medical professionals and patients to ensure its identified at an early stage and treated accordingly.”
Trudie Lobban MBE, CEO and founder of the AFA said:
“We are delighted that Darren Millar AM is supporting our campaign to raise awareness of Atrial Fibrillation in Wales. This is a little-known condition, yet estimates suggest that AF exerts a considerable economic toll on the Welsh health and social services.”
