Dr Ali Khavandi is a consultant cardiologist and a recent speaker at our Food. The forgotten Medicine conference.  We are delighted to see that he has now won funding to put his ideas into practice. 

Here is the press release from Royal United Hospital Bath where he works:

A Bath RUH heart specialist has won national funding to pursue his passion for helping people reduce their blood pressure and cardiovascular risk factors through diet.

Consultant Cardiologist Ali Khavandi is setting up a website that will offer patients healthy eating advice – reducing their risk of stroke and heart attacks.

The concept is that the website will save people time in researching what foods should be eaten and where you can buy them so they can order healthy nutritious food direct to their door.

He said: “I’m delighted that we have been awarded the funding as I’m passionate about prevention and finding new solutions to help people lower their high blood pressure without solely relying on medication. I believe that we specialists should find new engaging ways to help people make the right choices when it comes to adopting a healthier diet and lifestyle.

“Currently, everyone with high blood pressure is advised to make the healthy lifestyle changes but there’s so much misguided information out there, it can be confusing and people often make the wrong choices when it comes to what they eat. I want to change that.”

In this pilot scheme, patients diagnosed with high blood pressure will receive a ‘health pack’ which will contain information and incentives. This will direct them to a central ‘health hub’ website giving further specific dietary information, and access to his blog, The Cardiologists Kitchen which includes healthy eating recipes.

Dr Khavandi said: “The concept is that the website will save people time in researching what foods should be eaten and where you can buy them so they can order healthy nutritious food direct to their door. We understand people lead busy lives and want convenience foods, but there’s no reason why they can’t be healthy.”

Dr Khavandi’s concept is part of the Health Foundation’s £1.5 million innovation programme, which supports innovation at the frontline across all sectors of health and care services.  The project is also being backed by BANES Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Public Health England (PHE).

To monitor the success of the project, the RUH Research and Development team will gather patient evidence over a 12 month period to demonstrate whether the initiative has made a difference in reducing peoples’ high blood pressure and improving eating habits.

Sarah Henderson, Associate Director from the Health Foundation said, “We are very excited to be working with such a high-calibre team and I’m pleased that we will be able to support the development and testing of their idea over the next year.

“Our aim is to promote the effectiveness and impact of the team’s innovation and show how they have succeeded in improving the quality of health care, with the intention of these being widely adopted across the UK.”

The programme will run for fifteen months (with three month initial set up) and each project will receive up to £75,000 of funding to support the implementation and evaluation of the project