Alicia Kearns (Conservative, Rutland and Stamford) has now received the Government’s response to her parliamentary intervention on reform of vascular services, answered by Health Minister James Frith on 15 September 2026. This matters beyond vascular disease because the response gives a useful indication of how DHSC is beginning to talk about implementation of the new CVD Modern Service Framework. (UK Parliament)

Kearns asked whether Government would respond to the recommendations of the Vascular and Venous Disease APPG’s March 2026 report. Frith said the CVD MSF prioritises evidence-led approaches across prevention, treatment and care, with consistent and equitable access, and specifically said DHSC and NHS England had worked with stakeholders to consider the role of emerging innovations across the CVD pathway. (UK Parliament)

This is important for heart failure. The answer also acknowledges that NHS England has not undertaken a national assessment of routine primary-care diagnostic testing for peripheral arterial disease and that national data do not routinely capture diagnostic delay or the number of healthcare contacts before diagnosis. (UK Parliament)

That creates a strong parallel with heart failure. As implementation of the MSF develops, we can reasonably ask the question: what will the NHS actually measure for heart failure? This could include symptom-to-NT-proBNP time, NT-proBNP-to-echo time, diagnosis-to-GDMT initiation, proportion diagnosed outside an acute admission, and total patient contacts before diagnosis. These measures would turn the MSF’s ambition for earlier diagnosis into something commissioners can be held accountable for.

Alicia Kearns is definitely someone whose interests increasingly overlap with the case for earlier diagnosis, community diagnostics and measurable pathways.

Read Alicia Kearns’ question and James Frith’s full answer on UK Parliament

Another item that remains worth watching: Lord Taylor of Warwick has a live Lords question asking specifically about NHS adoption of AI systems for early detection of heart disease. The parliamentary record is still showing an awaiting answer from the DHSC. (UK Parliament)