1.5m more people to get cholesterol drug

Statin pills, the drugs that treat high cholesterol levels, are set to be prescribed to over 1.5m more people in the UK under new government guidelines.

‘High-risk‘ patients are to be selected from GPs’ records and offered the chance to benefit from the treatment.

The estimations have been made by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

This new move comes just months after it was announced that vascular screening would be provided to all 40 to 74 year-olds.

As cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks, account for one in every three deaths in the UK, this could prove to be another popular move.

In the majority of cases where patients have cardiovascular disease, it is likely that they will also have high cholesterol. Therefore the combination of these two plans may go some way to lowering the death rate; it is estimated that 15,000 heart attacks and strokes will be avoided each year.

Patients will be invited to their surgery to undergo risk assessment, which takes into account a number of lifestyle and genetic factors. They may then be offered the cheapest type of statin drug on prescription.

Professor Steve Field said: “There is evidence that if we can identify those at risk early enough, we can have a dramatic effect in helping people change their lifestyles and improve their health through specially targeted interventions such as smoking cessation and earlier access to treatment.”

Source: BBC News