Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the National Implementation Framework of the NHS Long Term Plan facilitates delivery of (a) improved equity in access to treatment for heart valve disease, (b) additional funding for treatment of heart valve disease to enable healthy ageing and (c) increased NHS capacity for multidisciplinary teams providing care to all heart valve disease patients.

The NHS Long Term Plan outlines NHS England and NHS Improvement’s commitment to improve the prevention, early detection and treatment of cardiovascular disease. As part of this, local systems will work to better support people with heart failure and heart valve disease through multi-disciplinary teams as part of primary care networks.

To improve early detection of heart failure, pilot schemes will be established in 2020/21 and 2021/22 to increase access to echocardiography, ahead of a wider rollout. Greater access to echocardiography in primary care will improve the investigation of those with breathlessness, and the early detection of heart failure and valve disease.

There are published service specifications that promote network working to ensure cardiac pathways are well-defined.

The Specialised Commissioning Cardiac Improvement Programme is also focusing on improving multi-disciplinary team working, including the use of technology to optimise the available resource within clinical teams.