SE Academic Review 2023

26 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

The first point in the plan is to improve early detection and treatment of CVD. As previously mentioned in this essay, this could have a very positive impact on people’s lives; diagnosing conditions early must be the top priority for the NHS. However, it will not be viable to test everyone in the country for CVD. The NHS can monitor other factors that could lead to a CVD or could be a warning sign of having a pre-existing condition. These factors include controlling blood pressure and cholesterol. This idea is supported by the alarming estimate that 40 % of people who have hypertension are unaware of it. I have already explained that there are some common and important risk factors leading to CVD. Furthermore, these can also be a sign of pre-existing congenital conditions. Testing cholesterol and blood pressure is so easy compared to scanning and screening and produces some very useful information. Therefore, I believe this is a very important part of the plan that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. The NHS plan goes on to describe how they will boost the amount that people know about the symptoms and risk factors, a process working towards people routinely knowing their ‘ABC’ numbers. The ‘ABC’ includes factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol. Firstly, they mention increasing the amount of GP check-ups and recording results of any tests in a structured way. This will allow doctors to highlight those who are more at risk of

developing CVD and help them treat problems. This programme of CVD preventative testing is called ‘CVD Prevent’. An interesting point mentioned in the plan is something I mentioned in the previous section. The plan advocates expanding access to genetic testing for family Hypercholesterolaemia. This would enable those who are genetically more at risk to be diagnosed and treated (NHS, 2020). Having reviewed the key points of the plan, it is clear that the NHS are targeting an important area in preventing CVD. This is high blood pressure and cholesterol which can lead to several types of heart disease. However, surprisingly, a couple of factors were not listed in this plan which I believe would also be key in reducing the occurrence of CVD. Following the research, I have done on factors leading to heart disease, more emphasis should be placed on changing lifestyle choices including diet and exercise. Those are very easy, cheap, and efficient ways to reduce CVD; yet are not listed on the plan. By knowing the range your blood pressure numbers should be within allows you and your doctor to monitor your health and to make sure that you are not at an increased risk of developing a CVD. The process of ‘knowing your numbers’ is relatively straightforward as you can buy an inexpensive monitor to use at home. However, this process only really highlights risk factors and does not detect pre-existing heart conditions. The more complicated and expensive cardiac tests consist of MRI scans, CT scans, echocardiograms, and chest X-rays. These methods are not generally used as a preventative measure as they are very expensive to carry out and would not be viable to perform on the wider population. However, as this is the most effective way of finding CVD, there is reason to investigate the possibility of increasing the use of these type of tests. The absence of any mention of lifestyle changes in the NHS plan is an area of concern as such a simple and effective method could save people’s lives. The plan also did not mention any type of screening system which is alarming. This is the largest fault in the plan due to the effectiveness of the scanning systems at picking up the most life-threatening conditions. This, however, may support the financial argument, that increasing cardiac screening on such a large scale would not be financially viable.

“ ...more emphasis should be placed on changing lifestyle choices including diet and exercise. ”