Rapid community "Healthy Heart" screening to identify people at high risk of cardiovascular events
Kiran Roest, Catherine Kelly, Tracy Marshall, Emily Whales, Lisa Taylor, Rachel Hatfield, Kate Bunyan, Luke Dawson, Steve Roest, Julia Newton
Abstract
To evaluate the proof-of-concept feasibility of identifying individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease through community-based PocDoc Healthy Heart point-of-care screening in a large, ethnically diverse, disadvantaged real-world cohort in the United Kingdom.
Introduction
Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death globally, most premature deaths caused by CVD are preventable by risk factor modification [1]. Dyslipidaemia, obesity, hypertension and diabetes are key modifiable risk factors for CVD and are targeted by preventative medicine initiatives such as the NHS Health Check (NHS-HC) in the United Kingdom (UK) [2,3].
Materials and methods
The primary aim of this community screening study (NCT06258005) was to identify individuals with a high risk of CVD, defined as having a QRISK3 score ≥10%, the threshold at which NICE Guideline NG238 recommends consideration of CVD risk reduction interventions following an informed discussion [9].
Results
The total number of participants approached or the denominator population eligible for screening was not systematically collected across screening venues, limiting our ability to calculate formal uptake rates.
Discussion
This proof-of-concept study found that community-based point-of-care cardiovascular screening using the PocDoc Healthy Heart device was feasible in the settings studied and can identify participants with elevated CVD risk who had not been previously screened.
Conclusion
This proof-of-concept study found that community-based point-of-care cardiovascular screening using the PocDoc Healthy Heart device was feasible across the real-world settings studied. Individuals with elevated QRISK3 scores and unmet cardiovascular risk management needs were identified through the screens.
Citation: Roest K, Kelly C, Marshall T, Whales E, Taylor L, Hatfield R, et al. (2026) Rapid community "Healthy Heart" screening to identify people at high risk of cardiovascular events. PLoS One 21(9): e0358999. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0358999
Editor: Paulo Alexandre Azevedo Pereira Santos, University of Porto, Faculty of Medicine, PORTUGAL
Received: December 22, 2025; Accepted: September 8, 2026; Published: September 29, 2026
Copyright: © 2026 Roest et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The dataset contains potentially identifying patient health information collected under NHS Research Ethics Committee approval (IRAS 325988) with participant consent for use in this specific study. Under the terms of the ethical approval and participant consent, individual-level data cannot be made publicly available. Reasonable requests for access to anonymized aggregate data should be directed to the Robin Matthews (robin@mypocdoc.com) and Vital Signs Solutions for consideration by the study Data Access Committee, which will review requests in accordance with ethical and legal requirements. Requests will be assessed based on scientific merit, ethical appropriateness, and compliance with data protection regulations. Summary data supporting all findings are presented within the manuscript and supplementary materials. Contact for data access requests: • Robin Matthews (robin@mypocdoc.com) • Institution: Vital Signs Solutions Ltd (trading as PocDoc) The ethical restrictions arise from the NHS Research Ethics Committee approval conditions, which specify that identifiable patient data collected with participant consent for this study cannot be shared beyond the research team without additional ethical approval and participant re-consent.
Funding: The study was funded by a grant from Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare, UK. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: Kiran Roest, Kate Bunyan, Luke Dawson, and Steve Roest are employees and shareholders of Vital Signs Solutions (trading as PocDoc). Catherine Kelly, Tracy Marshall, Emily Whales, Lisa Taylor, Rachel Hatfield, and Julia Newton declare that they have no financial or other conflicts of interests. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
