Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to identify children with familial hypercholesterolemia.

Public Health England, NHS England, the British Heart Foundation, HEART UK and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) are working in partnership to aid the implementation of recently updated NICE guidance on familial hypercholesterolemia (FH).

A cholesterol test is included as part of an NHS Health Check. This provides a key opportunity to identify the first case of FH within a family and, in line with NICE guidance, the subsequent testing of family members including children.

The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) recommended against a population screening programme in 2016. The UK NSC will review the evidence for FH again in 2018/19 as part of its three-yearly cycle.