UK's NICE issues updated guidance on CVD, diabetes and other treatment issues

UK health authority the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has issued new guidance for the National Health Services in England and Wales on how to manage people at risk from cardiovascular disease, including the provision of the drug simvastatin, the patent for which has recently expired, to 1.5 million more patients.

The NICE has called for a more proactive strategy in the preventative treatment of the disease, using national patient databases to invite those people at the highest risk of heart problems to visit their general practitioner for a checkup.

CVD accounted for one in three deaths in the UK in 2005. Those at the highest risk from the disease are identified as possessing three modifiable risk factors - smoking, raised blood pressure and raised cholesterol. The NICE is recommending that the NHS uses computer records to identify people who fit these three criteria, as well as the common age and sex characteristics of sufferers. The NHS will then offer those at risk an appointment with their physicians to discuss their lifestyle, as well as access to simvastatin, in the hope that cases of the disease can be reduced.