The Government have made tackling health inequalities a top priority, and the most comprehensive programme ever in this country is in place to address them. For coronary heart disease (CHD), the target to reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease (CHD, stroke and related diseases) by 40 per cent. in people under 75 by 2010 was met five years early and the mortality rate has now fallen by 44 per cent. when compared to the 1995-97 baseline. Death rates from CHD between the most deprived areas and the national average has narrowed and we are on track to deliver the 2010 target of at least a 40 per cent. reduction in the gap.
From April 2009, the national health service is being asked to implement a systematic and integrated vascular risk assessment and management programme—the NHS Health Check programme. This will provide a mechanism to identify earlier people at risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease and support them to reduce their risk through the provision of lifestyle advice and interventions, and smoking cessation, and preventative medication such as statins. The programme has significant potential to narrow inequalities and many primary care trusts (PCTs) are using it as a major tool in tackling health inequalities.
Other mechanisms available include the work of the National Health Inequalities Support Team in spearhead areas (the areas with the worst health and deprivation indicators), the Health Inequalities Intervention Tool, jointly developed with the Association of Public Health Observatories that support PCTs and local authorities in local priority setting (including prioritising vascular conditions), planning and commissioning of services and the work of the Improvement Foundation Programme in improving early presentation of cardiovascular disease in the spearhead areas. This is in addition to the work that PCTs are doing to address some of the risk factors for vascular disease such as making available smoking cessation, weight management and physical activity programmes in a way that is accessible to the groups within the population who most need them.