Guidance
This guideline covers the risk of early death from heart disease and other smoking-related illnesses. It aims to reduce the number of people who are disadvantaged dying prematurely by ensuring people have better access to flexible, well-coordinated treatment and support.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- identifying adults at risk of early death from heart disease
- improving access to services
- ensuring services work together
- training for staff
Who is it for?
- Health and social care practitioners
- Organisations planning, providing or supporting services that support disadvantaged people
- Adults with a high risk of heart disease (including smokers and people with high cholesterol), their families and carers and the general public
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
The guideline was previously called identifying and supporting people most at risk of dying prematurely.
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.