Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent steps they have taken to improve the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation.

In 2014, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published updated guidelines on the management of atrial fibrillation (AF), which covers the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of the condition. NICE is also developing AF Quality Standards which it expects to publish this summer.

In addition, the NHS Health Check programme’s best practice guidance recommends that a pulse check is carried out as part of the process of taking a blood pressure reading and that individuals who are found to have an irregular pulse rhythm should be referred to their general practitioner (GP) for further investigation.

NHS Improving Quality’s (NHS IQ) is also taking action on AF. It is promoting the use of GRASP-AF (Guidance on Risk Assessment and Stroke Prevention for Atrial Fibrillation) within GP practices in England. GRASP-AF is a simple and effective audit tool developed by and trialled in the National Health Service, which greatly simplifies the process of identifying patients with AF who are not receiving the right management to help reduce their risk of stroke. NHS IQ is currently collaborating with partner organisations, including charities, to support the nationwide roll-out of GRASP-AF.

To support this work, NHS IQ recently published an analysis of the costs and benefits of using the anticoagulant drug warfarin to help prevent stroke in people with AF. A copy of this analysis is attached and can also be found at:

http://www.nhsiq.nhs.uk/media/2566750/af_economic_analysis_final.pdf