Adjournment debate: Cardiac and vascular health policy from 2010 onwards

22 April, 2.30-4pm, Westminster

Malcolm Moss MP (Conservative MP for North East Cambridgeshire and Vice Chair of the APPG on Heart Disease) led a Westminster Hall adjournment debate based on the CVC's Destination 2020 (D2020).

12 MPs attended, including the Health Minister Ann Keenand official party respondents. See full text of the debate in Hansard at:

Positive outcomes from the debate:

  • Raised the profile of the CVC and D2020 with politicians
  • Ann Keen promised to respond in writing to Malcolm Moss on questions she did not have an opportunity to answer. This will provide opportunities for follow up on issues raised in D2020, and require DH to more carefully study and respond to the document
  • MPs were complimentary about D2020 and the value of the CVC
  • Ann Keen:
  • Agreed to meet with All Party Groups on Heart Disease, Carers and Smoking and Health
  • Welcomed CVC's work on modelling the future burden of CVD and stated that "One direction that we are keen to pursue is a more integrated cross-vascular approach"
  • Agrees to work with the Coalition in the future
  • Mark Simmonds (Conservative Health Spokesman) said D2020 was excellent and "sits well with Conservative policy". He congratulated "the Cardio and Vascular Coalition for the excellent work of its disparate groups and for the production of the report, which will enable a continued focus to be placed, quite rightly, on this area of the provision of health care services in the forthcoming months and years."

Key points from the debate:

  • Malcolm Moss stuck closely to his brief providing a clear overview of D2020, calling for a renewed cardiovascular commitment incorporating the commonalities of all cardiac and vascular disease. He questioned the difference between the renewal recently announced for the Mental Health NSF and the CHD NSF. The Minister did not seem to acknowledge this nuance.
  • Labour MPs Dr Hywel Francis and David Taylor were complimentary about D2020. Dr Francis also pointed out that constituents wrote to him about the BHF petition
  • Sandra Gidley MP(Lib Dem Health Spokesperson) welcomed D2020, especially the patient record cards recommendation. However, she asks how the ambitions set out in the document can be achieved. She was also critical of social marketing programmes
  • Ann Keen MP(Health Minister):
  • Agreed to meet with All Party Groups on Heart Disease, Carers and Smoking and Health
  • Stressed she felt the NSFs had stood the test of time, and rebuffed the idea of a future strategy
  • Made clear that the work of the NSF for CHD will not stop dead after 10 years, and that the standards in the NSF and the markers of quality element of the stroke strategy would be hard to improve upon
  • Welcomed CVC's work on future burden of disease, recognised the value of the third sector partnership and of integrated approaches to related conditions.
  • Apart from the NHS Health Checks, did not set out explicit plans as to how they will pursue a more integrated cross-vascular approach – one of the key aims of the CVC.
  • Agreed to work with the Coalition in the future
  • Agreed that there is unfinished business: “Our recently published 2008 progress report for the CHD NSF stated that we must continue not only to build on the success that we have realised so far, but to consider where we need to do better. There is no doubt that we need to focus relentlessly on improvement and on making quality the organising principle of the NHS.”

Suggested next steps for the CVC Public Affairs Group (actions in brackets):

  • Brief MPs involved in relevant All Party Groups on key CVC messages for their meeting with Ann Keen, and help set up meeting (Public Affairs Group)
  • Pursue direct meeting with Ann Keen (follow on letter to be sent from Betty McBride on behalf of CVC)
  • Ask Malcolm Moss and Chris Ruane MP to investigate where impetus came from for a new Mental Health plan (asking whether mental health tsar Louis Appleby was instrumental in pushing for a renewal) and use these arguments with relevant cardiac and vascular tsars (Public Affairs Group)
  • Review written responses from Ann Keen to Malcolm Moss (on unanswered questions from the debate) and consider a follow up adjournment debate if necessary (Public Affairs Group)
  • Pursue meeting with Mark Simmonds (Public Affairs Group).

For further information or comments please contact Ruairi O’Connor, Chair of CVC Public Affairs Group