Evaluation of the Young@Heart outreach health check programme

By Dr Angela Long – March 2025

Dr Angela Long, Research Assistant at Newcastle University

In 2019, Newcastle University School of Pharmacy set up the Young@Heart initiative. This is a student-led clinic where undergraduate pharmacy students provide the equivalent of the NHS health check (measurement of blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, height and weight) to members of the public and people from local community groups who are particularly at risk of health inequalities. The placement supports students to develop skills, behaviours and competencies to better prepare them for professional practice and offers an opportunity for members of the public to access health checks on a walk-in basis.

The Young@Heart initiative has grown significantly over the past four years and in September 2024, in collaboration with Newcastle City Council, a three-year site was developed in the Grainger Market in the centre of Newcastle to run between September and March each academic year. So far, between September and December 2024, students at this site have delivered 734 health checks to members of the public and offered health and lifestyle advice as well as signposting and referrals to onward services for further support to improve their health.

However, while the clinic is well received by the public, as with the national NHS Health Check Programme, it is not possible to understand the impact the initiative has on reducing undetected disease risk or addressing the behavioural and lifestyle factors that may be contributing to this risk. This means that the true clinical impact of the initiative is not clear. To address this gap, Newcastle Health Research Partnership has funded an evaluation of the Young@Heart initiative, with the aim of developing a comprehensive framework to assess its impact and effectiveness.

Approach to the evaluation

The evaluation uses the RE-AIM planning and evaluation model, which is widely recommended for the evaluation of public health interventions. This model addresses five key dimensions of individual and setting-level outcomes that are critical to program impact and sustainability: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance. By analysing clinic service activity data, conducting interviews with clinic attendees, staff, students, and key stakeholders, the evaluation aims to explore the following:

Reach – Who is benefitting from the clinics, and which populations are being reached by the community clinics.

Effectiveness – How effective are the clinics at identifying health risks (using clinical data), encouraging behaviour change, reducing disease risk, and promoting the uptake of onward services to improve health.

Adoption –What are the barriers and facilitators for clinic adoption at the setting and staff level.

Implementation – How consistently are the clinics delivered and as intended. What barriers and facilitators affect implementation, and what adaptations have been made during delivery?

Maintenance – What is the sustainability plan, and how committed are organisations to maintaining the clinics? How do the clinics’ reach and effectiveness evolve over time?

Evaluation Outcomes

There is an opportunity to develop a framework for evaluating the initiative that could be adopted by local authorities as a means of capturing impact from the NHS Health Checks and thereby inform ongoing commissioning. In addition, other schools of pharmacy and undergraduate programmes around the country are keen to develop a similar placement model for their students and learn from Newcastle University as pioneers in this approach. Therefore, there is considerable value in evidencing the clinical impact of the Newcastle model alongside the educational gains for students.