Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England (NHSE) have joined forces with more than 40 other organisations to set out a national strategy to improve the detection and treatment of atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Over the next 10 years, the National CVD Prevention System Leadership Forum, made up of governmental bodies, healthcare policy makers, royal colleges, clinicians and academia, will strive to widen access to cardiovascular disease care to more people in the 40 to 74-year age group.

PHE and NHSE’s plans broadly revolve around three ambitions; to detect and treat millions more people living with high blood pressure who are currently undiagnosed, ensure three-quarters of 40 to 74-year-olds get a formal cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk check and have their cholesterol levels recorded and increase by 10% the number of people on statins in that age group who are at risk of CVD.

People in that age bracket have also been urged to get a free NHS health check.

Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at the PSNC, said: “Many community pharmacies already play an important role in identifying people with undiagnosed CVD, via locally commissioned services such as hypertension and AF screening and the NHS health check.

“We want to see more commissioning of this type of service so that community pharmacy teams can play a full part in realising PHE and NHS England’s national ambitions.

“In the NHS long term plan, NHS England committed to testing approaches to identification of undiagnosed hypertension and AF through pharmacies. We look forward to working with NHS England on this, building on the great work of many LPCs which have already implemented local services focused on hypertension and AF detection.”

More than five million people in England have undiagnosed high blood pressure according to PHE and NHSE who said their “ambitions also commit to reducing the health inequalities associated with CVD, with people in the most deprived communities four times more likely to die prematurely from CVD than those in the least deprived.”

The organisations said they will publish health inequality data on each of the high-risk conditions and plans to address them by 2021.

Picture: patrickheagney (iStock)