Cardiovascular disease remains one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the UK. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) Stats Service is a new contract currently held by the Institute of Applied Health Research at University of Birmingham on behalf of the BHF.
The aim of the BHF Stats Service is to provide statistical compendia and other products for the British Heart Foundation effectively to meet their needs. It makes use of a number of health survey data sources (community data sources), publicly available data on air pollution, prescribing data, summary hospital episode statistics and Office for National Statistics (ONS) mortality statistics. This includes an annual update on the trends in cardiovascular disease mortality in the UK and CVD risk factors. BHF statistics help to inform the public of their own risk of CVD; health professionals how they manage CVD risk and treat patients with CVD and BHF statistics can be used to help inform policy decisions. Amongst other projects, work is currently being undertaken in collaboration with Public Health England on stroke and TIA using electronic primary care records and calculating a CVD risk (QRisk score) which is increasingly the basis for determining treatment eligibility.