UK Government to Consider New Approach to Prevent Severe Cardiovascular Disease

As a result of Prof. John Deanfield’s appointment as Government Champion for Personalised Prevention, a project to identify radical new approaches to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) and alleviate NHS pressure is in the works.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has asked Professor Deanfield, who is a professor of cardiology at University College London and led a review of the NHS Health Check in 2021, to investigate and broaden the role of technology in assisting individuals in taking better care of their health and lowering their risk of cardiovascular disease.

A taskforce with expertise in health policy, health technology, behavioral science, big data, and health economics will be led by the Government Champion for Personalized Prevention. In order to present a vision for a cutting-edge, individualized cardiovascular disease prevention service, his taskforce will develop a set of recommendations that are supported by evidence.

They will look at how the most recent health technology could be used to predict, prevent, diagnose, and treat key risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other health conditions, among other topics, including the use of individualized data to better predict and prevent illness.

Economic inactivity, premature death, and ill health are all major contributors to CVD and its risk factors. It costs the NHS approximately 7.4 billion pounds annually and causes up to 250,000 hospital admissions and 140,000 deaths in England.

Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said that, the work of Professor Deanfield will help us understand how people across the country could use it in their daily lives and prevent cardiovascular disease. Technology is essential to a forward-thinking, modern NHS.

These conditions cause a quarter of a million hospital admissions each year and cost the NHS billions of pounds. This ambitious project could have a real impact on people who have these conditions or are at risk of developing them.