Today we can all proudly celebrate the remarkable story of improvement over the past five years:

·     Today, nearly two million children are receiving a free piece of fruit on every school day, setting them up with a healthy start in life. In 1997 none of this was happening;

·     Today a national network of smoking cessation services has helped hundreds of thousands of people to kick the habit. In 1997 there were no smoking cessation services;

·     We estimate that about 2.5 million people in England are protected with cholesterol lowering drugs, compared to about 300,000 in 1997;

·     54% of people who experience a heart attack are treated with clot-busting drugs within an hour of dialling 999, compared to just 24% when we started out – perhaps an extra 22,500 patients are treated within the “golden hour” that means so much for survival; 

·     Well over 90% of people experiencing chest pain for the first time are seen by a specialist clinic within two weeks;

·     Today, 95% of patients have their angiogram within six months – still too long. But in 1997 waiting times for angiography weren’t even collected, such was their priority, but we all know they were long.

·     I said celebrate. When our NHS has cut premature deaths by 27%, saved 25,000 lives, and guaranteed equal access to heart operations within 3 months, I am entitled to ask every politician in this land to congratulate you – the NHS.

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Waiting over three months for bypass surgery or angioplasty will soon be a thing of the past. In 1997 well over a thousand patients waited more than a year and waits of up to two years were not unheard of. Now, the most recent provisional figures show the lowest numbers of waiters ever for bypass surgery – only 845 patients waiting over three months, and none of them waiting more than six months. By the end of this month, we expect that no-one will wait more than three months.

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Close on £¾ billion of public money for new and expanded specialist cardiac hospitals, including £125m for catheter labs.  £0.7 billion a year on statins alone – and rising.  And on a smaller scale, money for public access defibrillators is saving lives also - two lives saved already up the road at Birmingham New Street, and 55 across the country so far.

But the critical thing is that new money hasn’t just brought "more of the same". I know how much courage, imagination and determination it has taken for you all to go out on a limb and deliver real change for heart patients in England.

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Each of you in your own way has taken those risks for change; and they have paid off:

·     In June 2002 it was in coronary heart disease that we first gave patients a real choice about where they are treated and it is now poised to be one of the first that will offer patients choice at the point of referral.

·     You have established new types of service, such as Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics, which are transforming the way patients are treated. 

·     For heart attacks, growing numbers of paramedics are now taking clot busting treatment to the patient, improving their chances of survival.

·     Heart surgeons are leading the way with a new openness about outcomes for their patients.  And, even though these days they are operating on patients who have a much higher risk of dying - because they are older and sicker - the proportion of patients who survive is actually growing. 

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We also need to be much more effective in the way that we prevent heart disease.  The Public Health White Paper sets out a radical new agenda for delivering on that.  Again, reform will be the key to success.  For example, trained and accredited NHS Health Trainers will be providing personalised practical support, attuned to the realities of people's lives.

This investment in an effective infrastructure of local support, combined with the many other new approaches in the White Paper, has the potential to deliver the same radical change in prevention services over the next five years as we have delivered for treatment over the past five years. Here in Birmingham, I know that good work is already underway.  For example, the White Paper highlighted Bishop Challoner specialist sport college and the work it is doing with local schools and the community to give everyone the chance taking more exercise.

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Today, I’m announcing a new challenge.  When we wrote the NSF five years ago, we had to make tough choices about priorities and what was practicable at the time.  Had we realised then the progress we would have made by now, perhaps we would have broadened our scope and included arrhythmias then.  But whatever the case, the new chapter represents a significant and important piece of business for the patients that we serve.

I would like to put on record now my gratitude to Dari Taylor and to Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) - who prompted the new chapter - and to the Arrhythmia Alliance, who, with them, helped to write it.  They have worked incredibly hard.  I am particularly indebted to the patients and to the families of children who have died suddenly for their time.  It has not been in vain.  Patients and families have made this a truly radical document, infused with a strong patient focus from start to finish.

I’m confident that in a few years time the papers will be telling a story of real improvement on arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.  If the papers then do not actually confirm the abolition of heart disease then they will, at least, be able to report remarkable progress.  In 1997, the death rate for heart disease and stroke was 141 per 100,000 population. By 2003 we had reduced that to 103 per 100,000 – a reduction of 27.1%.   So, the work you do - and the hard changes you make to use new investment to improve care - is making a big difference.  It is saving lives.  And I give you my heartfelt thanks for that.

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