Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on the NHS Long-term Plan aim to increase access to echocardiography in primary care to help improve the investigation of patients with breathlessness.

A new pre-diagnosis breathlessness pathway has been developed to support the improved recognition and timely diagnosis of heart failure and heart valve disease. We have introduced community diagnostic centres, which will support Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times. The National Health Service launched 92 community diagnostic centres, which have provided more than 1.25 million diagnostic tests and will support PCNs to improve the detection of conditions such as heart failure and heart valve disease