Is it as simple as ABC?

On behalf of HEART UK, Dr Jai Cegla Consultant in Metabolic Medicine at Imperial College and I sit on the NHS CVD System Leadership Forum (CVDSLF) which has just launched a new ABC Campaign. The Forum, a coalition led by Public Health England and NHS England, includes HEART UK and over 40 other organisations with the goal of combatting cardiovascular disease (CVD).

The campaign aims to improve detection and treatment of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and high cholesterol (ABC). To support the launch, Public Health England (PHE) has produced new online guidance on preventing CVD and a range of infographics and references.

PHE and NHS England has set itself targets as part of the campaign, listing a number of ambitions, of which HEART UK was instrumental, focussing on improving the country’s CVD outcomes.

The launch of the campaign and publication comes after the recently published NHS Long-Term Plan announced the ambition to prevent 150,000 strokes, heart attacks and vascular dementia cases over the next 10 years as well as improve detection and treatment of high risk conditions.

Despite there still being some way to go in determining whether NHS England adheres to its commitments on CVD, this marks a promising first step in addressing the issue.

The guidance encourages those eligible to receive an NHS Health Check to assess the risk of developing CVD. For treatment and management, the ambition is to focus on increasing statin treatment to those who have a 20% or greater risk of developing CVD and when progress has been made on the 20% target, it will be reviewed and a new target of 10%, per NICE guidelines, will be set

I am particularly proud of our achievement to ensure 25% of people with FH will be diagnosed and treated optimally according to the NICE FH Guideline by 2024. Without HEART UK this target would not be there.

We must now all work together to make this happen, find FH and save more lives.