Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations of Association of British HealthTech Industries' Cardiovascular Health Check Report, published November 2021, what plans he has (a) to appoint a national cardiovascular disease director and (b) create a national cardiovascular disease strategy to help reduce the number of deaths from the disease each year.

To deliver the priorities in the NHS Long Term Plan, a cardiovascular programme has been established led by national clinical directors and national specialty advisors. The programme is supported by senior clinicians from cardiac and stroke specialties and primary care.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with regional and local teams to develop cardiac networks and integrated stroke delivery networks in England. These networks take an evidenced-based approach to improvement from prevention, diagnosis, treatment and through to end of life care. The networks’ priorities include opportunistic case finding and the improved management of risk factors such as hypertension, atrial fibrillation and familial hypercholesterolemia.

To increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times, the National Health Service opening 44 community diagnostic centres which could deliver over one million additional scans and tests across computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray, ultrasound and echocardiograms by the end of March 2022.