Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to measure (a) national and (b) local performance on tackling high levels of cholesterol.

Cholesterol testing in primary care is included in the Quality Outcomes Framework for people diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes and this is published every year by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Public Health England’s (PHE) healthier lives website provides local comparisons of how well cholesterol is being controlled in people with diabetes. The link is below:

http://healthierlives.phe.org.uk/topic/diabetes

The Health Survey for England, an annual survey of the general population, has included measurements of total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol every year since 2008. The data is publically available from the UK Data Service.

In addition, the National Cardiovascular Health Intelligence Network within PHE is working closely with organisations concerned with cardiovascular disease to take forward the recommendations in the recent Heart UK report ‘Helping Us to Beat Cholesterol’. This report focusses on the importance of data in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease.