So people who are asked to participate are those who are aged over sixty five who are registered with the General Practices that are participating in the study and who have not previously been told that they have valve disease.

Those people are being invited to attend their General Practitioners for their first study visit. What that then involves is a study visit that is about forty five minutes to an hour long during which time we ask them a few background questions about their past health, particularly things that might affect the health of their heart, such as their blood pressure and whether they have had problems with angina, that kind of thing, and we then undertake a scan of their heart, an ultrasound scan of their heart which is called an echocardiogram, and which takes about twenty twenty five minutes. And allows us to have a good look at the structure and pump function of the heart, as well as looking at the valves in particular to look for any narrowings or leakage that might be there. What we do is we give people their preliminary results actually as they attend their first study visit so if their scan is normal we are able to reassure them at that stage and thank them very much for their participation and give them a copy of their results as well.

I think she was running about ten minutes late. And I had the 11.30 appointment and I was going to a gym class at 12.30, which was why I was slightly pressed for time. But I went down to the surgery, sat in the waiting room, was called in. It was a single room. There wasn’t anybody else there. It was a lady doctor, who said she was in charge of the medical side of that particular bit of the data gathering. I guess she was sort of mid 30s or something like that. And she took some initial tests. I think she took a blood pressure. She took a pulse rate [laughs], because I can remember I was struggling with the mental arithmetic of multiplying the pulse rate up by four to, to get [laughs] the beats per minute, and we had a laugh over that. And then, you know, take your shirt off, lie on the couch. And she had a screen, a sort of a laptop screen, and as she ran the probe over my chest, I could see sort of images that were coming up. And she was obviously going through some sort of schedule of various recordings in different places. And then turn round or turn over and, you know, do it from 90 degrees round. And, and that was it. I, I think the sort of slightly messy bit was probably about 15 minutes, you know, and Here’s a bunch of paper towels, scrub the, the jelly of, and, you know, off I went. She said, I’ll write to you in five years’ time [Laughs]. And I mean, that was it then. Simple and straightforward.

And so the actual appointment itself, Roy, why don’t you tell me what it was like from your perspective and what happened when you got there?

Roy’ Well, the girl just said to me, they were doing this survey, so to speak, and she said, Would you be interested So I said, Well, yes I mean, it’s no problem and they could do it straight away anyway, so that was that.

And did you have to wait long?

Roy’ No, no, she did it as I was there, really.

What actually happened? Can you talk me through what she did?

Roy’ Oh, I can’t remember.

[Laughs] Can you remember what she did?

Peg’ Yeah, well, she explained what the survey was about.

Roy’ That’s right, yeah.

Peg’ What she was going to do, and that she could see on her screen everything that was happening, sort of thing, and that she would show us afterwards. And she also explained that we would get a written result, and if there was any further appointments necessary at the hospital or anything, then they would get in touch. And it was just, well, it was just so simple. It was just like going in, you had a couple of wires attached to you and all the rest of it.

Roy’ It was like going in to see the doctor, really, wasn’t it.

Peg’ Yeah, well, it was.

Roy’ Yes.

Peg’ But

Roy’ That’s as far as I could see, you know.

Peg’ But it wasn’t quite so formal, was it?

Roy’ No, no, no.

Peg’ She was a very nice young girl, actually, that did it. She chatted all the time and what have you.

And you had to strip to the waist I think.

Peg’ Yes.

Was that all right? Because I know they’re, they’re concerned that people should feel it was dignified for them. Was it okay?

Peg’ Yeah. Yeah, that was no problem at all, you know. If you go to the doctor and they ask you to, you know, strip or something, you do it automatically. And I mean perhaps if it was a younger person then they wouldn’t be quite so willing to do that, but we both knew that it was a research.

Roy’ That’s right.

Peg’ And that we had to do what they wanted us to do.

Roy’ I didn’t get her excited.

Peg’ We didn’t have to [laughs]. We didn’t have to do it.

Roy’ No, but I mean that was it.

Peg’ We volunteered to do it.

Roy’ Yeah, yeah.

Peg’ Which we thought was the thing to do.

Roy’ Yeah.

I went in and booked in, and the young lady come out, you know, that was doing the screening and she called me in. I think I waited about five or six minutes. She came in. She was a lovely lady, she really was, you know, and she asked me some questions. She took my blood pressure, which was normal. And she said to strip off to the waist, which I did, you know, and I had to lay on the couch, and lay on my left side, and I didn’t see the screen. And she came from the back and just put the monitor on, just on my chest, like. And you know, she was just so friendly you don’t even realise, you know. It made you feel so comfortable and, you know, I was really comfortable and yet I’m usually sort of a bit strung up. But I felt really comfortable.

Tell me more about that, you’re usually strung up. Do you mean you might have been a bit anxious about having to strip off and?

[Laughs] Well, I don’t know whether I ‘m allowed to say this or not, but I don’t like standing in there with nothing on the top, and I said to her, I said, The only thing I don’t like about thi, I said, is showing everything I’ve got [Laughs]. And she smiled and she said, No She said, We don’t take any notice She said, In fact, there was one lady that walked out when she knew that she had to strip down So I mean, at our age we’re not used to it, are we, you know? But I’d still rather do that than not go at all. So, you know, I overcame that problem [laughs].

Is there anything you think they could do to make it more dignified?

I don’t really know, because I mean to say they’ve got to have real access to show things up, haven’t they? So, really and truthfully speaking, I don’t think there is, you know. I mean, it’d be nice if there was. I know, when I used to go for the breast screening, you used to walk in there in the altogether, which was embarrassing, and now you can put a cardigan round your shoulders, which I think is nice, you know. They say it’s to keep you warm but it I think it’s to cover your dignity as well. So, you know, it is a good thing, but the heart screening I don’t think there would be, because they don’t want any obstacles in the way, really, do they? They want a clear view and things like that.

Do they just screen you from the front or is it from the back as well?

No, they just screen you, I had to lay on my side – it might have been, I forget about that, really. I had to lay on my side and she did it, she sort of come in from the back, and sort of reached over from the back and sort of done it there.