The lack of engagement with the NHS health check should be deeply concerning for the secretary of state, as it is with me, an emergency medicine doctor who treats the consequences of undiagnosed heart disease (Less than half of eligible people received NHS ‘midlife MOT’ since 2019, says watchdog, 13 November).
When you look into it further, the inequalities are alarming. If you come from a deprived part of England, such as east London, where I work, then you are four times more likely to die from a heart condition than those from more affluent areas. If you are male or from a Black or South Asian background, then you have a higher risk of developing heart disease, yet men from those communities are less likely to attend their NHS health check invitation.
The term “hard to reach” is old fashioned and, quite frankly, discriminatory and neglectful. We must do more to prevent high‑risk communities being “hard to serve”. Black, Caribbean and South Asian men should be invited for their health check earlier, at 30 years of age, then again at every five years. The evidence for prevention is the earlier the better. We must then take the service to the people. This includes NHS health check buses on council estates, integrating the offer into corporate occupational health services, and multilingual public health messaging on community TV and radio that serve these communities, explaining the importance of the checks.
The solutions are not new nor innovative, but now that the government wants to shift from hospital to community, and from treatment to prevention, then we must harness the political enthusiasm to maximise healthier living for my patients.
Dr Jahangir Alom
London
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