Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the use of personal fitness trackers on the prevention of cardio-vascular conditions.

NHS England is working with the National Institute for Health Research, Public Health England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence amongst others to develop suitable evidence generation plans for digital health tools, which will include wearables. Evaluation and evidence gathering is included as part of relevant programmes to help build the currently immature evidence pool in this space.

NHS England and partner organisations have also established assessment criteria for digital tool developers looking at the quality, safety and effectiveness of digital health and care apps or tools. The service is due to go live towards the end of 2018 on the developer apps section of the National Health Service website.

In addition, as part of the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, NHS England has pilots in hand to test the effectiveness of digital apps in supporting diabetes prevention, which are due to report by the end of 2019. They include consideration of the use of wearable technologies and fitness apps in supporting reduction of diabetes risk. It should be noted that many of the potential benefits of the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme lie in reducing future cardiovascular events.

Cardiovascular disease prevention is also a key theme in NHS England’s Five Year Forward View and their NHS RightCare programme, and both NHS England and Public Health England already have a number of initiatives in place in line with this aim, including the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Optimal Value Pathway, cross-cutting interventions such as the NHS Health Check, and a new drive announced in September 2017 to prevent heart attacks and strokes by taking a more integrated approach to cardiovascular care.