CRY is a UK charity focused on preventing sudden cardiac death (YSCD) in young people. 1 in 300 people CRY screens will have a potentially life-threatening heart condition which will benefit from lifestyle advice, treatment and sometimes corrective surgery; whilst one in 100 people will have a condition that could cause problems later in life if they were unaware of it.
Screening young people (14-35) for undiagnosed cardiac conditions, CRY wants every young person to have the opportunity to have their heart tested. www.testmyheart.org.uk
• Research into causes, risk detection, better methods for diagnosis and prevention. CRY is a significant investor into funding research and research fellowship grants, as well as funder of the UK expert cardiac pathology service. CRY is also investing heavily into AI and Machine Learning to materially widen the access to expertise, specialist services and screening.
Support and bereavement services for families affected by sudden cardiac death and those young people diagnosed with heart conditions.
Support for young people diagnosed with a heart condition through our support network myheart.
Awareness & education so people and the medical community know about risk and warning signs. CRY assesses symptoms and family history in every person we screen.
The NHS faces a range of challenges, including poor access to services, growing waiting lists and patient satisfaction at an all-time low; rising costs and required cost savings: NHS accounts for more than a third of government spending; slow digital innovation and integration into clinical practice; and productivity challenges across the workforce.
The Plan aims to deliver major improvements in the NHS, with key radical shifts including:
From sickness to prevention
Proactive prevention, earlier diagnosis and addressing upstream determinants of health via prevention campaigns/services, policy and preventative tools (e.g. vaccines, screenings, genomics)
From analogue to digital
Leveraging technology, digital tools, expanded use of data, and innovation to drive access and efficiency
From hospital to community
Rebalancing spend towards local services (incl. GPs, Neighbourhood Health Centres)
The Plan emphasises patient experience, technology, workforce reform, health equity and efficiency. This includes ambition to reduce health inequalities (halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between richest/poorest areas) and improve children and young people’s health (incl. mental health, early support, etc.).
CRY’s work aligns well with, already contributes to, and has the potential to further support several of these.
| Government illustrative Thematics, Goals, Priorities | How CRY contributes |
|---|---|
| Prevention & early diagnosis | CRY’s screening programmes help identify potentially fatal cardiac conditions in young people before they cause harm or death. Early detection is key. |
| Reducing healthy life expectancy gap and narrow health inequalities | Many sudden cardiac deaths in young people are from undiagnosed conditions; screening & raising awareness is crucial for all communities (inc. underserved). If screening is made more widely accessible, this helps reduce inequalities and bringing England in line with international good practice (e.g. Italy’s longstanding programme). |
| Improving children & young people’s health | CRY’s age focus (14-35) overlaps with ‘prevention starting with children and young people’ and ‘thriving young lives’ in the Plan. Also, support and awareness among populations at risk (including mental wellbeing via CRY’s expert and peer support via myheart for those diagnosed). |
| Use of research and data for better prevention and efficiency | CRY funds research, pathology, collects data on causes, incidence, genetics, etc, which all feed into a national evidence base. >This evidence base is essential in the next stage of development through AI and Machine Learning (ML) where CRY’s expertise will enable significant advances to address the shortfall in cardiology expertise and capacity required to widen access to these essential services (see below). |
| Reducing burden on healthcare/overwhelmed emergency care | Preventing sudden cardiac arrests/deaths (which often present acutely/emergency) reduces emergency admissions, and long-term consequences. This aligns with shifting care upstream. |
Our work over our 30-year history offers the NHS an immediately deployable YSCD prevention infrastructure: proven screening models, national datasets, specialist pathology, and emerging AI capability—without the lead time or capital cost of building from scratch. If nothing changes:
There are areas where there may need to be stronger integration, expansion, or where CRY’s work might be limited by scale or policy (on which we seek to work collaboratively and support considerations around policy development, and funding/resource allocation).
| Gaps/Challenges/improving alignment | Limitations and opportunities/mitigations |
|---|---|
| Scale and accessibility |
Limitation: CRY offers screening via a mobile screening programme and at the CRY national screening centre (funded by affected families). Currently CRY’s model does not enable for screening to be universally available, through limitations by availability of expertise/capacity, geography, cost, staff, funding. Due to a failure of institutions to recognise the incidence of YSCD, the economic cost to society has not been recognised and there has been a lack of investment. Opportunity: 10 Year Plan aims for more systemic prevention, which needs widespread, consistent access. Through greater support of CRY’s AI research programme, clinical advances will be expedited and more young lives saved. This would move cardiac screening from a charitable safety net to a nationally consistent, equitable prevention offer. |
| Integration with NHS & formal policy |
Limitation: For early diagnosis & screening to have large impact, it needs greater integration into NHS pathways (e.g. making more standard, policy development supported) and for it to be funded in a sustainable way. Opportunity: Specialist Inherited Cardiac Condition (ICC) services and expert cardiac pathology services need to be provided with the necessary financial support to provide services to referrals of at-risk cases. Currently these services are either funded by charities such as CRY and the BHF, or underfunded. |
| Awareness in the general public / medical professionals: |
Limitation: While CRY raises public and specialist awareness on a daily basis, government support, public health campaigns, and leveraging NHS dissemination channels could raise awareness more broadly. Opportunity: CRY is developing new resources (forthcoming / under peer review) which could have a major impact on the services GPs are able to offer (with appropriate support). |
Healthcare is on the brink of transformative progress. The next wave of innovation will hinge on significant investment in AI and machine learning —tools capable of translating clinical expertise and CRY’s rich prospective and longitudinal datasets into practical resources for frontline clinicians, from emergency departments to proactive ECG screening programmes. This shift will enable earlier identification, more precise risk stratification at scale, and life-saving and better outcomes for young people at risk.
We believe the embedding of the 10-Year Plan presents a unique opportunity to bring together progress toward shared goals, leveraging CRY expertise and investment in screening and AI-enabled diagnostics to explore future strategic partnerships (e.g. with ICCs, HDRS), with the potential to realise NHS workforce efficiency gains.
CRY’s work aligns strongly with key underpinning pillars/thematics of the 10 Year Fit for the Future plan — prevention, early diagnosis, children and youth health, research, maximising research, data and digital for better prevention and efficiency. It sets prevention as a core strategic pillar, prioritising early diagnosis, proactive health management, community-based care, and digital transformation across the NHS. While the Plan articulates a broad commitment to prevention, specific mechanisms for early detection of conditions with high premature mortality, such as young sudden cardiac death, are not detailed. CRY’s established programmes, data assets, and digital innovations offer scalable contributions to underpinning policy priorities, particularly in predictive risk profiling, workforce support and integrated community health models.
To amplify national impact, CRY would benefit from enhanced collaboration with existing health frameworks, stronger policy backing, and formal adoption of screening within NHS and primary care pathways. This would ensure that cardiac screening becomes accessible to all young people, not only those able to attend CRY-organised events. Establishing a National Strategy for the Prevention of Young Sudden Cardiac Death would address these needs directly.
Vision and ask: maximise relevant opportunities for collaboration within the 10 Year Plan to recognise and reduce the impact and incidence of YSCD