Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 12 July 2022 to Question 29952 on Heart Diseases: Health Services, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of auscultation tests in community diagnostic centres to support the detection of heart valve disease.

NHS England advise that the use of clinical auscultation using a stethoscope is not sufficiently sensitive to identify the presence and clinical significance of heart valve disease. While some community diagnostic centres may have examination rooms, the majority will effectively diagnose such conditions using echocardiograms.