ABHI Cardiovascular Health Check Report Launch: Three Months On
The ABHI Cardiovascular Health Check Report took a broad view of the issues, exploring six key challenges, ranging from workforce to patient pathways, and makes four central recommendations.
- To appoint a National Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Director with powers to join-up and direct the delivery of treatment with accountability and resource.
- The creation of a National CVD Strategy.
- Ensure the level of resource which is focused on CVD matches the scale of the challenge
- Invest in an NHS workforce which has the skills, training and knowledge to diagnose, treat and manage CVD.
Since our report was published there has been some welcome progress around some of our key challenges.
Diagnosis
The announcement of the 40 community diagnostic centres was an important step forward. Recommended by Sir Mike Richards in his Report of the Independent Review of Diagnostic Services for NHS England, the group embraces the opportunity that these centres provide to speed up CVD diagnosis. Detection and diagnosis are a crucial aspect of the CVD pathway, and looking at this differently will help many more patients get the support and treatment they need, quicker.
NHS England Priorities
In the 2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance released at the end of December 2021, NHS England set out its priorities, and the group was pleased to see the synergy between those announced, and our recommendations set out in the ‘Health Check’ report.
Our recommendations focused on how addressing CVD, in a joined-up way, can support wider NHS’ aims of efficiency and increased productivity, whilst helping the workforce. This would also aid in reducing the backlog, and make the most out of current resources by looking at CVD pathways in a different way. The group will continue to engage NHS England and support these key priorities through the report recommendations.
CVDPREVENT
Finally, NHS England and NHS Improvement have commissioned the first national primary care audit – CVDPREVENT. This national primary care audit looks to address the Long Term Plan efforts to prevent 150,000 deaths from strokes and heart attacks over the next ten years by improving the treatment of high-risk conditions. The findings of the audit highlight the challenge within CVD and highlight the opportunities to improve outcomes. This aligns neatly with the solutions that we also proposed in our ‘Health Check’ report. Even incremental changes to the way CVD conditions are diagnosed, managed and linked up could have a significant impact here, which is what makes CVD so important.
The audit outlines ways in which new Integrated Care Systems can set up quality improvement programmes and work with partners, such as charities and industry, to help achieve these goals. This joint partnership is something our report focused on, and we welcome the focus on how this way of working can yield successful results.
Joining up diagnosis and treatment in the cardiovascular space, and placing a spotlight on this condition area, provides a unique opportunity to save and improve the lives of thousands of people. The current focus from government and the NHS is welcome. I look forward to continuing to drive forward our recommendations and working collaboratively with partners to build on the progress and ambition to date.
Declan Dunphy, Manager - Commercial Business EMEA Vascular Division, Cook Medical, Chair ABHI Cardiovascular
About ABHI Cardiovascular
ABHI Cardiovascular brings together a number of manufacturers of products for the different specialties within CVD and has taken a high-level view of CVD, examining the challenges faced by the NHS and wider impact of the disease to the UK population.