NHS health check

An NHS health check is a form of preventive healthcare offered by NHS England. Every local authority in England was obliged to secure the provision of health checks to be offered to eligible persons (aged from 40 to 74 years) in its area.

Creation and criticism

In January 2008, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that preventive healthcare was planned to be offered throughout England to "monitor for heart disease, strokes, diabetes and kidney disease–conditions which affect the lives of 6.2 million people, cause 200,000 deaths each year and account for a fifth of all hospital admissions."[1]

Some, such as the Glasgow GP Margaret McCartney, have criticised the programme of health checks as being without evidence of effectiveness.[2] However, the head of health and wellbeing at Public Health England Kevin Fenton defended the programme, claiming it was evidence-based.[3]

A study published in 2014 in the British Journal of General Practice found no significant differences in the change to the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease or atrial fibrillation in general practices providing NHS Health Checks compared with control practices.[4]

Costs and take-up

Peter Walsh, deputy director of the Strategy Group at NHS England admitted that take-up of the checks was poor in January 2016, after a study showed that 20% of those eligible aged 60–74 attended and 9.0% of those between 40–59.[5]

In May 2016 researchers from Imperial College London concluded that the checkup reduced the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease by 0.21%, equivalent to one stroke or heart attack avoided every year for 4,762 people who attend. The programme cost £165 million a year.[6]

A retrospective observational study by the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Queen Mary University of London found that take up in an ethnically diverse and socially deprived area of East London had increased from 7.3% of eligible patients in 2009 to 85.0% in 2013–2014. New diagnoses of diabetes were 30% more likely in attendees than nonattendees, hypertension 50%, and Chronic Kidney Disease 80%.[7]

Only 8.1% of adults aged 40—74 years in England had an NHS health check in 2018/2019, although 17.6% were offered one.[8]

In August 2019 Matt Hancock announced that the checks would be more tailored to individuals’ risks. [9]

Elsewhere in the UK

A similar provision under the "Life Begins at 40" programme was announced by the Public Health minister for Scotland Shona Robison in 2011.[10] However, the health checks have yet to be implemented in Scotland, with some GPs arguing that there is no evidence for its effectiveness and challenging that it is a waste of money and time.[11]

See also
  • NHS in England

References
  1. "In full: Brown speech on the NHS". BBC News. 7 January 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  2. "Too Much Medicine Where's the evidence for NHS health checks?". British Medical Journal. 2 October 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  3. "NHS Health Checks programme 'evidence based', public health chief insists". Pulse. 17 September 2014. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  4. Caley, Michael; Chohan, Paradip; Hooper, James; Wright, Nicola (1 August 2014). "The impact of NHS Health Checks on the prevalence of disease in general practices: a controlled study". 64 (625). British Journal of General Practice. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  5. "Take up of health checks are "not strong, to put it mildly"". Nursing in practice. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  6. "NHS "mid-life MOT" has marginal health benefits, say researchers". Imperial College. 3 May 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  7. Robson, John; Dostal, Isabel; Madurasinghe, Vichithranie; Sheikh, Aziz; Hull, Sally; Boomla, Kambiz; Griffiths, Chris; Eldridge, Sandra (2016). "NHS Health Check comorbidity and management: an observational matched study in primary care". British Journal of General Practice (Online first).
  8. "Less than 10% of eligible adults had NHS health check last year". Pharmaceutical Journal. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  9. "Patients attending Health Checks since 2012 increases by over half". Management in Practice. 18 October 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2019.
  10. "Cyber health checks for over 40s". BBC News. 20 February 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  11. Puttick, Helen (5 May 2014). "Health checks for over-40s are quietly dropped". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
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