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Heart Diseases: Women

Answer

Heart valve disease (HVD) affects over 1.5 million people over the age of 65 years old in the United Kingdom, and this number is expected to increase in line with general population growth and the increase in the number of older people. Continuous improvements have been made in the HVD pathway for service users, but there remains unwarranted variation and inequalities in gender.

A review of health inequalities for all specialised cardiac services, including aortic stenosis services, a type of HVD, is currently being undertaken. This will specifically consider the presentation of males versus females with aortic stenosis. In addition, work to improve HVD outcomes includes:

• NHS England working with providers to implement a single point of access pathway for severe aortic stenosis;
• the NHS Long Term Plan, published in 2019, includes a number of key ambitions to improve care and outcomes for those individuals with cardiovascular disease, such as HVD, including enhanced diagnostic support in the community, better personalised planning, and increasing access to cardiac rehabilitation;
• NHS England publishing a learning package for healthcare professionals on heart failure and HVD, which supports clinicians across primary care and community settings to better recognise the symptoms, diagnose, manage, and support patients with heart failure and HVD, as well as support on palliative and end of life care; and
• an NHS England commission of the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society to develop a new referral form to support the investigation of HVD to guide primary healthcare teams to confidently refer patients with suspected, or known, HVD for specialist assessment or echocardiography, or both, where appropriate.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL3203

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Diagnosis Women Heart diseases Standards

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk