By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

A DUNDEE project given a fat wad of cash to tackle ill health is thin on results.

Health bosses heard yesterday that little more than half of the 14,000 people targeted by Keep Well had responded to invitations to attend their GP for assessment.

In a year just over 3000 had actually had the assessments that check weight, blood pressure and other indicators of ill health.

Two thirds of the city’s family doctor practices are participating in the £2 million plus Keep Well project. It was set up to find people at risk of ill health such as heart disease then help them to make changes such as giving up smoking and losing weight.

But one year on the results came under scrutiny and serious questions were asked yesterday about whether the cash could be better spent.

Members of NHS Tayside’s strategic policy and resources committee meeting in King’s Cross Hospital were presented with a “progress” report. But for some members the figures just didn’t impress.

Non-executive director Andrew Richmond was positive about the aims of the project, but questioned whether it was reaching the appropriate people.

He said the people most at risk of ill health were those who were not registered with a GP and not visiting a doctor.

“I would just like to see our money spent in a better way in future in this programme,” he said.

He had tried to look at the “cost benefit” of what the health authority was actually getting from the project. NHS Tayside’s chief operating officer Gerry Marr suggested a comparison should be made with the work of the cardiology unmet needs team.

That team decided to move out of Ninewells Hospital and go to the events attended by people from deprived communities at risk of heart disease.

Tests have picked up and treated many health problems.

Shona Hyman, Keep Well project co-ordinator, said 60 people had now been diagnosed with hypertension as a result of the project.

She said there had been “a lot of referrals around weight management” and the work would start to have “a significant effect on the obesity epidemic.”