MPs back new report promoting ‘Healthy Hearts’ across the nation
A collection of articles from University of Manchester experts which provides a roadmap to tackle the national cardiovascular health crisis has been warmly received in Westminster.
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‘Healthy Hearts’ incorporates academic research on cardiovascular disease (CVD) which now results in someone’s death in the UK every three minutes.
In her foreword for the report published by Policy@Manchester, the Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation, Dr Charmaine Griffiths, warns that CVD is now one of the country’s biggest killers, “tearing families apart and causing untold heartbreak to far too many.”
She adds: “In the last half a century, huge strides have been made to halve the number of people dying from heart and circulatory diseases in the UK each year. But worryingly, this progress is now at risk.”
‘Healthy Hearts’ covers a plethora of issues pertinent to cardiovascular health, from heart disease in cancer survivors, to the effects of air pollution on heart health.It also includes an international perspective on the impact of cardiovascular deaths in developing countries around the world.
After reading the document, Labour MP Dr Simon Opher, a former GP and now Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Health Group, believes that ‘Healthy Hearts’ should prompt policymakers to address the threat of CVD.
“Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has said we need to switch our medical care from cure to prevention,” he observes. “The ‘Healthy Hearts’ report shows exactly why. Making better use of digital technologies and predictive tools could prevent many deaths from cardiovascular disease. The science is well known and yet currently in our NHS this isn’t being done.”
