To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings of the Association of British HealthTech Industries' Cardiovascular Health Check report, published November 2021, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease in the UK each year.
Answered on
7 December 2021
To deliver the priorities in the NHS Long Term Plan, a cardiovascular programme has been established led by national clinical directors and national specialty advisors. The programme is supported by senior clinicians from cardiac and stroke specialties and primary care.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with regional and local teams to develop cardiac networks and integrated stroke delivery networks in England. These networks take an evidenced-based approach to improvement from prevention, diagnosis, treatment and through to end of life care. The networks’ priorities include opportunistic case finding and the improved management of risk factors such as hypertension, atrial fibrillation and familial hypercholesterolemia.
To increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times, the National Health Service opening 44 community diagnostic centres which could deliver over one million additional scans and tests across computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray, ultrasound and echocardiograms by the end of March 2022.