A new summary of findings shows the lipid management and familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) national spread programme, that ran across the Health Innovation Network,  increased the uptake of lipid lowering therapies and the identification and management of people with FH. It also helped clinical teams put new treatment pathways in place for patients.

The programme, from October 2020 to March 2023, aimed to tackle cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is one of the areas of improvement identified in the NHS Long Term Plan and a priority for reducing health inequalities in NHS England’s Core20PLUS5. Cardiovascular disease is the cause of around 1.18 million hospital admissions each year, with annual costs of approximately £19bn in the UK.

With a focus on primary care, through engagement and education events, the HINs supported clinicians to identify those at risk, so they could support patients to lower their lipids. It was anticipated that these interventions would in turn lead to a fall in the number of major cardiovascular events, such as heart attack or stroke.

The summary includes data from an independent evaluation by Unity Insights, and other sources such as CVDPREVENT and UCLPartners ‘Size of the Prize’ infographics.

 Achievements during the programme include:

• The total proportion of people with known CVD treated to NICE-recommended thresholds increased from 23.7% to 27.8% (March 2021 – March 2023).
• The improvement in lipid management achieved across England is estimated to have prevented over 9,000 heart attacks and strokes.
• The identification of genetically confirmed familial hypercholesterolaemia increased from 9.6% to 13.8%.

Download the summary here.

In the East Midlands, as part of the programme:

• Health Innovation East Midlands influenced five ICBs with their CVD delivery during 2023-24, which covered 97 PCNs and 181,810 patients with known CVD and on lipid lowering therapy and 801,597 patients with registered hypertension (March 2023).
• 57 Primary Care Networks implemented the Hypertension proactive care framework in at least one of their practices.
• 136 practices were implementing or had adopted the framework by September 2023, 39 of which were priority practices identified as having the highest levels of health inequalities.

Nikki Biddlestone, who leads the CVD Prevention programme for HIEM said: “Following on from the national programme, this year we have taken the learning to create CVD Prevention – a new three-year programme working with primary care to identify patients at risk of CVD and optimise treatment.

“Our aim is to support our local systems to detect, appropriately manage and optimise treatment for high cholesterol, hypertension and FH, and so reduce broader cardiovascular risk, prevent heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.

“We have launched a new library of resources for health and care staff and for patients on our website, which is free to access.”

Anyone interested in finding out more can contact Nikki via: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.