Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to improve (1) cardiovascular disease pathways, (2) waiting lists, and (3) earlier diagnosis, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan and the Major Conditions Strategy.

We are committed to tackling deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD), of which there are far too many, and setting a goal for fewer lives being lost to the biggest killers, including CVD. The development of the Major Conditions Strategy was paused following the general election. NHS England’s 2019 Long Term Plan sets out a number of actions that aim to help prevent up to 150,000 heart attacks, strokes, and dementia cases by 2029, and progress towards this is ongoing. To deliver the National Health Service Long Term Plan priorities, a CVD programme has been established which is clinically led by national clinical directors and national specialty advisors, and supported by senior clinicians from a breadth of cardiac and stroke specialties, and primary care, as part of expert advisory groups.

Tackling waiting lists and ensuring that patients receive the care they need when they need it is a key part of our Health Mission. Funding announced in the Autumn Budget will support the delivery of an additional 2 million operations, scans, and appointments during our first year in Government, which is the equivalent to 40,000 per week, as a first step in our commitment to ensuring patients can expect to be treated within 18 weeks.

The NHS Health Check programme, England’s CVD prevention programme, finds people aged 40 to 74 years old who are at risk of CVD and supports them to reduce their risk, preventing approximately 500 heart attacks or strokes each year. To improve access and engagement with the life-saving programme, we are developing a digital NHS Health Check which will be ready for testing in early 2025, and will enable people to undertake a check at home. We are also trialling the delivery of heart health checks to over 130,000 people in workplaces across the country, all of which would improve earlier diagnosis of CVD.

At the 2024 Autumn Budget, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £1.5 billion of capital funding for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners. This will build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests, as well as new beds which will create more treatment space in emergency departments, reduce waiting times, and help shift more care into the community. We will also address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests that are needed to reduce elective and cancer waits. Finally, the NHS is prioritising roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres, with capacity prioritised for cancer diagnostics.