Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to introduce a nationwide, family-based, follow-up system to ensure comprehensive identification of people affected by familial hypercholesterolemia.

Public Health England (PHE) is part of a cross-organisation national familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) Steering Group, led by the National Clinical Director for Heart Disease.

PHE is working with NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), HEART UK and the British Heart Foundation on the development of an implementation guide which will be published in early 2018. The guide is for commissioners and local health economies, and aims to help facilitate the development of local FH services, supporting better identification and management of people and families affected by FH, across England.

A cholesterol test is included as part of an NHS Health Check. Guidance alerts practitioners conducting the check to consider the possibility of FH in line with NICE. Emerging evidence shows that compared to routine primary care practice, the NHS Health Check programme is detecting more cases of FH.