Make Every Contact Count More: The co-design and preliminary evaluation of an enhanced abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programme
This project was funded by the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) Applied Health and Care Research Group, a joint initiative between MAHSC and NIHR ARC-GM.
What were we trying to do?
This project aimed to increase participation in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) screening by reducing inequalities, improving engagement, and making AAA screening more widely available in the Greater Manchester (GM) region. We also wanted to screen for additional risk factors during testing, allowing us to identify potential health risks early so we could connect individuals with appropriate community-based support.
This project is an important part of the "Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy" and the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership Strategy, both of which aim to help people stay well and detect illness earlier.
Why was it important?
Deep in our stomach, there's a big blood vessel, and in older men, it can develop a bulge called an "Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm" or AAA. If we don’t catch this bulge early it can burst and be very dangerous, even causing death.
Thankfully, there's a test that can catch it when it's easier to fix. This test is offered to 1000s of men every month, but not everyone turns up, and we wanted to understand why.
Our goal was to work with these men, and the people who do the tests, to improve the process, so that more people want to take the test.
How did we do it?
The study had three parts:
- We talked to men who weren't taking the test to understand how they look after their health and what they think about going for tests.
- We worked with the men and the people who did the tests to make sure we could check for other health problems when they decided to take the AAA test.
- We made improvements based on what we found out. Then we tried out these improvements in a few places to see how well they worked and how we could encourage even more people to take the tests, especially those who find healthcare difficult.
Findings
Findings from this study will be available in due course.
The research team
- Principal Investigator - Dr Sarah Prenton (University of Salford)
- Dr Naseer Ahmed (Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust)
- Angela Aldridge (Manchester Local Care Organisation)
Who did we work with
- Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
- Manchester Amputation Reduction Strategy (MARS Project)
- Manchester Local Care Organisation
Funding
This research project received an award of £39,325 from the 2024-2025 MAHSC Applied Health and Research Group.
Useful information
Contact information
Dr Sarah Prenton
Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Salford
S.Prenton1@salford.ac.uk