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Cardiovascular System: Screening

Answer

The Government are committed to raising awareness but will consider the exact timing in light of the progress of implementing NHS Health Checks so as not to raise expectations before they can be fully met.The Department published "Putting prevention first—vascular checks: risk assessment and management—next steps guidance for primary care trusts" on vascular checks in November 2008. It states that:"'It is important that PCTs devise and use a model (of delivery) that is best suited to their population and that when doing so they consider tackling health inequalities that exist within their area'."A copy of this document has been placed in the Library.To ensure that the NHS Health Check programme is accessible to all those eligible, and to help reduce health inequalities, it has been designed so that the basic risk assessment and management components are suitable to be undertaken in a variety of settings, for example pharmacies and community centres as well as general practitioner (GP) practices. This means that people who are not in touch regularly with formal health care, particularly GP services, will be encouraged to access the checks at convenient locations and times. In addition to the guidance which the Department has already issued to primary care trusts (PCTs), it has been working with PCTs, through the Learning Network hosted by NHS Improvement, to help ensure that the experience and learning of developing and implementing different delivery models for the checks is shared across the country. The evaluation will consider the contribution that different providers of NHS Health Checks make to the delivery of the programme.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

495 c333W; 282873

Session

2008-09

Related items

Deposited Paper DEP2008-2778
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Deposited papers
House of Lords
House of Commons

Subjects

Screening Cardiovascular system

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk