Lord Kakkar
Main Page: Lord Kakkar (Crossbench - Life peer)(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. Excess deaths from all causes involving cardiovascular disease have reduced year on year since 2020 to December 2023. Relative excess deaths involving cardiovascular diseases were higher in the years prior to that—2021 and 2022. Clearly, we still have a lot more to do on that front.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest. Is the Minister able to confirm whether there is a systematic approach to assessment of risk for poor clinical outcome for those patients on the waiting list? This would help in the earlier identification of those where the poorest outcome might be predicted and therefore drive intervention earlier in those cases.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises a good point, as always. It is not always the number of people on waiting list, it is the amount of time they spend on it. As I said in a previous answer, the NHS now triages at an earlier stage to try to identify exactly those patients who need earlier intervention.