Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease.

The Government is committed to reducing premature mortality from heart disease and stroke by 25% in the next 10 years. To accelerate progress towards this ambition, we will publish a Modern Service Framework for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) in 2026, which will identify the best evidenced interventions, and drive innovation in prevention, treatment, and care. The Department and NHS England are working closely to deliver the CVD modern service framework and will engage widely throughout its development.

Alongside this, the NHS Health Check, a core component of England’s CVD prevention programme which aims to detect those at risk of heart disease and stroke aged between 40 and 74 years old, engages over 1.4 million people and through behavioural and clinical interventions, prevents approximately 500 heart attacks and strokes a year. To improve access with the programme, we are piloting an NHS Health Check online service so that people can undertake a check at a time and place that is convenient to them.

We have invested in hypertension case-finding for those over 40 years old in community pharmacies, and nearly 4.2 million people have received a free blood pressure check through the service since October 2021.