Inside Health is off air…and back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime for tonights’ More or Less, here are the main references used for the badly thought out, publicity friendly, potentially harmful screening test that Public Health England didn’t seek advice from the UK National Screening Committee about. No user testing, not designed around the people using it, and which seems to routinely overestimate risk if you don’t know your cholesterol and BP – and make it hard for you to know that. A needless waste of time for citizens and primary care – who will inevitably have to pick up the pieces while people who really would benefit from an appointment can’t get one.
Note: screening for familial hypercholesterolaemia: The UK NSC is currently reviewing the current guidance which is not to screen the population but screen high risk family members. If a change is agreed, it would likely be done as part of an programme aligned with other child screening programmes, and resourced, tested, audited and evaluated. Primary care is not resourced to run this and it is not currently recommended by the UK NSC.
https://bjgp.org/content/64/627/493
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/1-in-10-men-aged-50-have-a-heart-age-10-years-older-than-they-are
https://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6624
https://www.bmj.com/content/336/7644/598.long
https://www.jbs3risk.co.uk/pages/DOI%20for%20JBS3.pdf
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg71
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2047487313518479
https://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6624
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-launches-new-tool-to-raise-awareness-about-heart-disease
https://bmccardiovascdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12872-018-0760-1
4 Responses to “More or Less 7/9/18 – heart age”