Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the adoption of a personalised approach to medicines (a) in general and (b) in the treatment of familial hypercholesterolemia.

The Government is committed to embedding the use of genomic technologies and personalised medicine in healthcare. Through significant investment the 100,000 Genomes Project and the establishment of 13 NHS Genomics Medicine Centres, the National Health Service is at the forefront of the collection and use of whole genomes sequence data on a large scale. The project covers cancer and rare diseases including familial hypercholesterolemia.

NHS England published ‘Improving Outcomes though Personalised Medicine’ on 7 September 2016:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/qual-clin-lead/personalisedmedicine/

This document sets out the vision for embedding personalised medicine within healthcare provision and explains how the use of genomics and other diagnostics can be used to identify people most at risk of diseases such as familial hypercholesterolemia before the onset of their symptoms.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence has also published clinical guidelines on the identification and management of adults and children with familial hypercholesterolemia. These guidelines are currently being reviewed and updated.