Premature Deaths: Heart and Circulatory Conditions

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Merron]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increasing numbers of premature deaths from heart and circulatory conditions since 2020.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)]

The Government are committed to reducing premature deaths from cardiovascular disease. The NHS long-term plan aims to prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases by 2029, as well as preventing up to 23,000 premature deaths and 50,000 acute admissions over 10 years. The major conditions strategy will look at how best to tackle the key drivers of ill health and increase the healthy years of life for people with major conditions such as cardiovascular disease.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities reports a persistently high number of excess deaths involving cardiovascular disease since the beginning of the pandemic, avoidably cutting short more than 100,000 lives in England alone. What are the urgent plans for treating the thousands who are waiting for healthcare? How will the Government extend the roles and joined-up working of a range of healthcare professionals beyond GPs to support the millions who are living with an undiagnosed risk of high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, diabetes and obesity?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness and draw attention to my register of interests: I am a shareholder in a small health company that does high-end heart tests for the private sector.

It is fitting that February is Heart Month. The concern that the noble Baroness raises is exactly the one that noble Lords will have heard me speak about. This is precisely the concern that Chris Whitty, our Chief Medical Officer, was worried about during Covid, with missed appointments because people stopped going to see their doctor meaning that we missed things such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. To tackle the problem urgently, as the noble Baroness suggests, we have put 7,500 blood pressure checkers in pharmacies. They have done 2 million checks to date. We have sent 270,000 blood pressure monitors to houses and have instigated mid-life NHS health checks to look specifically at early heart indicators so that we can try to tackle the problem that the pandemic caused.