Patients in 100% of UK postcode areas have now done a Healthy Heart Check

From the Shetland Islands to the tip of Cornwall, from Belfast to Jersey, PocDoc has reached a milestone we're incredibly proud of: at least one person in every single UK postcode area has now completed a Healthy Heart Check. That's 100% of the map!

Reaching every one of them means that PocDoc's cardiovascular screening has now touched the most remote islands, the densest cities, and everywhere in between.

We didn't set out to colour in a map for the sake of it. We set out to prove a point: that where you live should not determine whether you get the chance to understand your heart health. And right now, in the UK, it still does.

Why geography matters so much for your heart

Cardiovascular disease is not evenly distributed across the UK. It tracks, with painful predictability, along lines of geography and deprivation.

The most recent Government data shows a 3.2-fold difference in coronary heart disease hospital admission rates between the highest and lowest local authorities in England¹. Where you live can more than triple your likelihood of being hospitalised for heart disease. The burden falls hardest on the North of England, on coastal communities, and on the most deprived areas, precisely the places where access to traditional screening is often hardest.

Even though the NHS Health Check is offered free to all adults aged 40 to 74, only 9% of eligible 40 to 59 year olds have attended². For people in rural areas, on islands, working shifts, or living far from a well-resourced GP surgery, the practical barriers to getting screened can be insurmountable. A cardiovascular risk that would be caught in one postcode goes undetected in another.

This is the inequality PocDoc was built to close. A screening model that only works in cities, or only reaches people who can easily get to a clinic, would simply reinforce the divide. Reaching every postcode area, including the hardest-to-reach corners of the country, is the whole point.

What "every postcode" actually represents

Behind this milestone are real people in real places who might never otherwise have been screened.

It represents someone in Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, hundreds of miles from a major hospital, checking their cholesterol and heart age in ten minutes from a fingerprick. It represents a shift worker near Heathrow who couldn't get a daytime GP appointment. It represents residents of a Traveller site in Darlington, employees checked at their workplace, and patients in a community pharmacy who hadn't seen a doctor in years.

Each of those checks delivers the same thing, wherever it happens: a full cholesterol profile, BMI, NHS Heart Age and a ten-year cardiovascular risk score, delivered to a smartphone in minutes, with a clear pathway to follow-up for anyone found to be at risk. 

A milestone, not a finish line

Covering every postcode area is a landmark, but it's the beginning of the work, not the end of it. One person in every area proves the reach is possible. The mission now is depth: reaching the thousands of people within each of those areas who still haven't had their risk assessed, particularly in the communities where cardiovascular disease hits hardest.