Our Impact
We work to prevent premature deaths from high cholesterol – a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. We receive no government funding and rely on your donations to help fund our work.
At HEART UK, every day we strive to:
- Support everybody that contacts us for help and advice
- Campaign for patients to get a proper diagnosis and the best possible care
- Raise awareness of the risk of high cholesterol and familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH)
- Reduce premature deaths from high cholesterol a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes
Helpline
Our helpline provides impartial information and support to people who want to understand more about cholesterol.
In 2024/25 we supported 1,213 enquiries to our helpline.
The most frequent enquiries were on cholesterol test results, medications and diet-specific food questions.
Example feedback: 'A comprehensive response to my queries. I sent through a number of questions and the response clearly showed that an awful lot of time had been taken to address my specific issues - not just generalised statements'.
Healthcare Professionals
In 2024/25 we had 4,957 Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) subscribed to our clinical e-news.
- 859 HCPs attended or viewed our educational webinars. They rated their increase in confidence in treating their patients with high cholesterol from 3.21 to 4.15 out of 5
- Our quarterly Diet and Lipid Network meetings were typically attended by 140 healthcare professionals - 96% of those who attended found them useful and reported increased confidence in treating patients with high cholesterol.
- 242 healthcare professionals attended our Annual Medical and Scientific Conference.
- We held Tackling Cholesterol Together events for healthcare professionals in East of England, Kent, Surrey and Sussex and Durham.
- Our Nutrition Academy provides healthcare professionals with the evidence behind cholesterol lowering dietary recommendations, as well as support and training. We introduced 29 webpages with new dietary information for them in 2024/25, including a quick dietary guide for use with patients.
Literature
In 2024/25 we sent out:
- 192,713 free printed booklets to healthcare professionals to pass onto their adult patients.
- 10,307 printed resources for children and young people.
- An additional 28,329 materials were downloaded from our website.
We heard back that:
- 99.4% rated our literature is 'invaluable' or 'very helpful'.
Providing reliable information for both healthcare professionals and the public is vital in ensuring that everyone can make informed choices about their care.
Engagement and Influence
HEART UK is constantly working to keep cholesterol and other blood fat conditions on the healthcare agenda.
This year, our work at national level included:
- Keeping the pressure on policymakers for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cholesterol to be a top health priority.
- Cholesterol and other blood fats are a priority for the NHS and we have worked hard to ensure this the case, and contributed towards consultations on the NHS 10 Year Plan.
- We had three key messages: Do cardiovascular prevention properly, including genetics, the earlier the better; Ringfence prevention funding to ensure the funding goes to that; Put the patient and the patient voice at the centre of everything.
- We published our Prevention Pays work setting out over £2 billion a year can be saved if prevention is done properly.
- We have raised the profile of Lp(a) amongst GPs and MPs and met with NICE to begin on-going discussions on Lp(a) being included in their lipid guidelines.
National Cholesterol Month 2024
Our annual campaign to raise public awareness of cholesterol focused on 'Cholesterol & You - from understanding to taking action for a healthier heart'.
- We had 19,816 page views to our campaign webpages during October 2024.
- Our campaign webpage featured our new animation, information on cholesterol and we produced some videos on cholesterol and the menopause, 7 steps to lowering cholesterol and our 7-day meal plan.
How your donations can help:
- We support families and friends who have lost a loved one from high cholesterol and ensure they have the right information and help
- It costs £98.38 to enable someone to access the support they need from our Cholesterol Helpline on medical and dietary enquiries.
- We spend over £100,000 every year on printing information leaflets
- We run regular campaigns supporting patients and healthcare professionals
- Over 3.4 million people every year use our website for expert information about cholesterol
- Helping over a million people every year with our online heart healthy recipes
- Over 240 lipid specialists attend our annual medical and scientific conference each year
- 93 pence in every £1 donated goes towards our charitable activities
A note from the Chief Executive
It’s been another incredible year of lowering cholesterol! In 2024/25, I'm delighted to say that we launched some important new services to lower cholesterol and save lives:
- We invested in broadening our online dietary services with our brand-new holistic programme called Cholesterol SMART, which features many new resources to support our 3.4 million a year web user to lower their cholesterol by making changes to their diet and lifestyle.
- We delivered a number of face to face educational regional events up and down the country for the public and for healthcare professionals.
- We established two pilot areas for our new ChangeMaker programme with expert volunteers influencing health boards at local level.
- We launched two networks, one to support clinicians early in their cholesterol (and other blood fat) career and one for healthcare professionals managing children and young adults.
- We worked hard at national level and advocated to ensure that cardiovascular disease remains a top priority in the NHS and the Government’s 10 Year plan and for Lp(a), a genetic condition, to be included in NICE’s guidelines on lipids.
There is still so much more we need to do to reduce premature disease and death from cholesterol and other blood fat conditions in the future. But we couldn’t do it without our wonderful volunteers and generous donors and fundraisers.
Thank you so much for your support keeping families together for longer.
Jules Payne - Chief Executive