Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the early detection of heart valve disease in England.

On 1 October 2021, 40 community diagnostics centres (CDCs) were announced to improve the detection of heart valve disease in England, through the provision of earlier diagnostic tests closer to home. By the end of 2021/22, 66 had opened, with an ambition to increase the number of CDCs to at least 100 in the next three years. The CDCs will support Primary Care Networks to improve diagnostic capacity and increase the detection of conditions such as heart valve disease and heart failure.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to detecting and diagnosing an 54,000 people with heart failure and heart valve disease in the community by 2023/24. NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England have developed a new e-learning for healthcare course to support healthcare professionals to better recognise the symptoms of heart valve disease, diagnose, manage and support heart valve disease patients. Currently, eight modules have been issued and NHS England and NHS Improvement anticipate that the remaining modules will be available in 2022. The Plan also commits to improving cardiac rehabilitation to prevent up to 23,000 premature deaths and 50,000 acute admissions over 10 years

A national training programme to fast-track cardiac physiologists to address the workforce requirements across echocardiology services has been established. This is a full-time integrated training scheme leading to both a post-graduate certificate in echocardiology and level 2 BSE accreditation in transthoracic echocardiogram. There are currently 57 trainees participating in the scheme, with a further 85 funded posts from October 2022.