Healthy communities and healthy hearts
Executive Summary
The South West London (SWL) 2025 spring engagement programme in Merton focused on understanding local residents’ access to NHS services, healthy lifestyle behaviours, and views on cardiovascular disease (“healthy hearts”), particularly among Core20 and underserved communities.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of preventable early deaths with high prevalence of undiagnosed hypertension and other CVD risk factors leading to avoidable pressures and costs on the health and care system. Across South West London, and as part of the London Million Hearts and Minds programme there is the ambition to make a step change in heart health and to close health equity gaps.
12 local voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations were funded to deliver 32 activities and to have in-depth conversations with 270 people from a range of ethnicities, socio-economic and health backgrounds.
Key borough wide findings:
- Pressures on wellbeing and daily life: Financial struggles, poor housing, caring responsibilities and other pressures particularly affect those in East Merton, making it harder to sustain healthy habits. Loneliness and social isolation also significantly harm heart and mental health.
- Access to NHS services: People experienced difficulties in booking GP appointments with long waits and cancellations.
- Value of community and social support: peer support, group activities and safe spaces to talk openly were valued. Community groups, social activities help to provide purpose, reduce loneliness and encourage healthy behaviours.
- Building trust through inclusive care: discrimination, stigma and a lack of safe, culturally sensitive spaces within health services reported particularly from Global Majority and LGBTQ+ communities. Digital exclusion, with online systems creating barriers increases stress and limits people’s access to services.
Key healthy hearts findings:
- Looking after your heart can be difficult without clear advice or support, delays in seeking help due to unrecognised symptoms. Need for more community-led awareness sessions and support to understand risks and healthy behaviours.
- Delays in seeking help until the issue becomes severe or continuous due to low confidence in GP access and fear of overburdening the NHS.
- Awareness of signs and symptoms for cardiovascular diseases but more information needed on what else to look out for particularly if there are differences in symptoms for men and women.
- Pharmacies are trusted easily accessible and approachable in their communities.
- Confusion on where to go for information about heart health and find out about support services and available activities rather than relying on word of mouth.
- Bias and inequality make heart health support feel inaccessible with concerns that symptoms are not always taken seriously and fear of over-medicalisation among Global Majority communities.
- Lack of heart health activities in existing community settings with requests for blood pressure checks, for example during group activities to help identification of warning signs
Next steps
The insight in this report is presented by ward to support a neighbourhood approach.
The findings from this report are being shared with our local and health partners in Merton and across South West London.