Diabetes UK, the British Liver Trust and HEART UK have welcomed new plans to improve the frequency and quality of health checks performed by doctors to identify people at high risk of developing long-term health conditions.
Public Health England has released the NHS Health Check Implementation Review and Action Plan to monitor the performance of the scheme, which aims to assess the health risks of people aged 40–74 years. The organisation intends to promote good clinical practice by evaluating the competency of healthcare providers which carry out these checks. Public Health England has confirmed that the scheme is clinically effective and cost-efficient, and has therefore outlined a number of actions to ensure its successful uptake within the NHS. The action plan also confirms Public Health England’s commitment to focus on primary prevention and behaviour change.
All three charities wish to publicly support the NHS Health Check Implementation Review and Action Plan, which is dedicated to improving the schemes delivery.
Barbara Young, Chief Executive at Diabetes UK, said: “The NHS Health Check is a unique opportunity to prevent and identify serious health conditions, so we have been disappointed in the past that too few people were getting the opportunity to be risk assessed and signposted to interventions or treatment in this way.
“This review outlines the potential of the programme, to prevent 4000 people from developing type 2 diabetes each year, and highlights some important steps to make sure that these results are achieved.
“We are delighted that Public Health England is taking the NHS Health Check programme seriously, and we are particularly pleased to see it is committing to a target of 75% uptake of the programme per year. These conditions can have a devastating effect on people’s lives, and the basic fact is that the more people who have an NHS Health Check, the more lives that can be saved.”
