Hansard

Until I was contacted by one of the directors of Grampian Cardiac Rehabilitation Association Ltd—or GCRA for short—I had no idea how much valuable work was being done by that organisation throughout Aberdeenshire. I am delighted that I have been given the opportunity to put some of its achievements on the record, and that Mr Pacitti has come down from Aberdeenshire to listen to the debate.

There is no doubt that cardiac rehabilitation for patients who are discharged back into the community can save and transform the lives of many people with heart disease. It improves general fitness, reduces anxiety and depression, and is proven to reduce deaths from heart disease by more than 30 per cent over 10 years. At a cost of £600 per patient, compared with £1,400 per day in a coronary care unit and £8,000 for a heart bypass, it is clearly cost effective. It saves national health service resources by cutting readmissions to hospital, and it reduces the risk of further cardiac events by helping people to make and maintain changes in order to have a healthier lifestyle.

Prior to 2001, cardiac rehab in Grampian was NHS funded and run by the Swedish style association

, but those classes were stopped on the ground of safety. Thereafter, the NHS paid for the training of exercise instructors to British Association for Cardiac Rehabilitation

—BACR—standards to allow them to take classes. The local authorities did not take up the running of such classes as anticipated, so three of the people who had attended the Swedish style classes decided to set up an association to develop and run their own classes. That was eventually achieved after lengthy discussions with NHS Grampian as to their ability to cope with the task.

The inaugural meeting of GCRA was held in June 2002, following which it became a charity and began to run its classes. Thereafter, it became a company limited by guarantee and continues as such today.

The classes are run by instructors within BACR guidelines and use a mix of exercise styles. They are aimed at giving members the type of exercise that they want and enjoy, and have become popular and are much in demand. The association has grown to 600 exercising members in 32 classes, spread throughout Aberdeenshire. The total number of present and past members to date is estimated to be more than 1,100. I have heard excellent reports from participants, and it is my intention to see for myself, and to take part in, a class as soon as possible after 6 May has come and gone.

GCRA’s funding initially came from a variety of local groups, private donations and fundraising events. Then, for three years from June 2004, it received New Opportunities Fund money, and in 2007 got significant funding from NHS Grampian. BACR training courses were paid for by the Grampian heart campaign and the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland

. However, most of GCRA’s funding now comes from annual subscriptions, class fees, donations and fundraising events—which is not easy to sustain in these straitened times.

Partnerships have been set up with local industry, a university and councils to enable classes to be held in their facilities at little or no cost to GCRA. The Robert Gordon University school of health science was approached and has run BACR training courses in Aberdeen, which makes it easier to recruit instructors locally. Negotiations to put in place elective modules for CR instructors within physiotherapy, occupational therapy and sports science degrees are continuing. That is a first in Scotland, and only Loughborough University is currently doing the same thing.

A survey is planned for the autumn to get clear information on GCRA’s members, their motivation, what they like or dislike about the classes and how their health has improved, or otherwise, as well as statistical information on referral and so on. All that should be very useful for future planning.

From a rocky start, when NHS Grampian regarded the pioneers of GCRA as a “band of old codgers”—to quote GCRA’s briefing paper—who did not know the implications of what they were trying to do, GCRA is now very much a working partner with NHS Grampian. Hundreds of patients and GCRA members are being helped to return to normal, active lives in the community. Two members of the GCRA management board, all of whom work on a voluntary basis, now sit on the coronary heart disease and stroke managed clinical network project board.

It is GCRA’s intention that there will be nowhere in Grampian where anyone who needs and wants a cardiac rehabilitation class cannot access one easily. That is an ambitious goal, but GCRA is working on it.

I am sure that members will agree that GCRA is an excellent example of the voluntary sector at its best: it provides a very real service to patients and saves a great deal of money and resource for the NHS in Grampian. The board would like to see what GCRA does being repeated throughout Scotland. To that end, it now works with the British Heart Foundation and with Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland to promote cardiac rehab throughout the country. It is working actively in the current Scottish campaign for cardiac rehabilitation and it participates in the Parliament’s cross-group party on heart disease and stroke. I know that it has put questions to the Scottish Government about the future provision of cardiac rehab in Scotland, which I hope the minister will deal with in her response to the debate.

The availability of cardiac rehabilitation is patchy across Scotland at present. It ranges from being non-existent in many areas to being driven by the council, by the NHS or by the voluntary sector in other areas. It is clear that that is less than satisfactory.

In 2005, in a speech to the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam, Professor Bob Lewin said:

“If there were a pill that cost very little, reduced cardiac deaths by 27 (now over 30)%, improved quality of life, and reduced anxiety and depression, every cardiac patient in Europe would be expected to take it. There is no such pill, but taking part in a cardiac rehabilitation programme can provide all these benefits.”

Surely such programmes should be available to all who need them.

I will finish by warmly congratulating the founders and management board of GCRA on their magnificent achievements to date, and by wishing them well for the future. I hope that the minister will take on board the importance of their work to the whole of Scotland and let us know, in her reply to the debate, what the Government will do to secure the availability of cardiac rehab to all those in our country who need it and want it, whatever their postcode.