Victim will speak out for more preventative measures to be put in place

Brendan Young, a patient representative on the West Midlands Clinical Senate, is to speak out on the subject of atrial fibrillation (AF) at a meeting of the governing body of the South Worcestershire Cli-nical Commissioning Gro-up (CCG) at County Hall in Worcester on Thursday, November 28.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disturbance encountered by doctors.

NHS 2011 figures suggest AF affects in excess of one million people across the UK, although this is considered to be an under estimation due to delayed detection and diagnosis.

It can affect adults of any age, but it is more common as people get older. Among over 65s, it affects about 10 per cent of people.

Mr Young, of Powick, near Worcester, who will address health bosses during AF week, which runs from Sunday, November 24 until Saturday, Nov-ember 30, said the strokes people had when suffering from AF could be “particularly profound”.

He said he wanted to raise awareness of the importance of diagnosis and of getting people with AF medicated with anti-coagulant drugs.

“I’m there to request support to reduce the potential for strokes within the CCG’s boundaries and to ask that the CCG becomes more active in prevention and raising awareness of AF,” he said.

He said a stroke service was a “failed service” be-cause a successful service should prevent strokes.

Mr Young, a former shadow governor of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, protected a whistle-blower about a former suggestion that stroke services could be centralised at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.

Since then, he has campaigned for a centralised stroke unit at Worcester-shire Royal Hospital, in Worcester.

Mr Young also said he wanted to increase awareness of the AF Association, an international charity which provides information, support and access to established, new or innovative treatments for atrial fibrillation.