Actionable points on healthcare services with a potential role in primary and secondary prevention of CVD in women
| Disease condition | Actionable points |
| Cardio-oncology |
⇒ An individualised multidisciplinary approach to the management of women receiving cancer treatment, with a focus on screening, monitoring and early detection of cardiac toxicity, and also on the inclusion of traditional modifiable CV risk factors into the risk assessment and optimisation of pre-treatment, to improve survival and quality of life. ⇒ Address the under-representation of women in clinical trials of novel cancer immunotherapy treatments. ⇒ Need for registries monitoring cardiac toxicity in general and specifically in women. ⇒ Identify cardioprotective strategies for women undergoing cancer treatment with anthracyclines. |
| Cardiac rehabilitation |
⇒ Need to flexibly deliver individualised CPRPs which can overcome barriers and enhance participation. ⇒ More flexible rehabilitation such as home/virtual/hybrid individual and group-based rehabilitation options. ⇒ To enhance participation and outcomes there needs to be continued focus, from both a clinical and research perspective, on better meeting the needs of women within CPRPs. |
| Non-invasive CV investigation |
⇒ Consider sex stratified population level recommendations for cardiovascular imaging. ⇒ Increase clinician awareness about the strengths and limitations of each diagnostic modality in women with proven or suspected CVD. |
| Primary care |
⇒ A new paradigm is needed, a contractual data driven enabler to ensure that primary and secondary prevention of CVD has a unique focus on women’s health, and that colleagues recognise this area of medicine as core work. ⇒ Given the workforce pressures, the workplace and citizens themselves should be part of the solution, empowered to understand the value and purpose of focusing on CVD prevention. ⇒ The digital age should be harnessed in the NHS to ’automate what can be automated‘ in order to reduce workforce burden and enhance patients’ experience. ⇒ To accelerate change, national contracts are required, ICBs being held to account as systems rather than siloed providers, to make women’s CVD health an ‘everyone’s responsibility’ approach. ⇒ National adoption of technology is also required rather than ICBs being left to procure at a local level, taking valuable time and energy. |
CPRPs, cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation programmes; CV, cardiovascular; CVD, cardiovascular disease; ICBs, integrated care boards.