The letter follows the committee's evidence session on 22 January on the National Audit Office's (NAO's) report Progress in preventing cardiovascular disease.

In light of health inequalities relating to CVD, the committee's letter recommends that the Government ensure that those commissioning and delivering health checks are obligated to collect and report demographic data relating to uptake.  

The correspondence emphasises that it is ‘essential that the department is able to measure whether those at the greatest risk [of CVD] do actually have health checks'.

The committee also expresses concern that uptake rates of health checks vary widely between different local authorities and that, according to the NAO, the DHSC ‘has no levers to influence local authorities' performance in commissioning health checks'.

In last week's evidence session, committee members asked witnesses whether the department would, as recommended in the NAO report, carry out a review of the value of commissioning health checks through local authorities compared with the NHS, or a different system.

In its letter, the committee recommends that this review explicitly considers how commissioning arrangements could be changed so as to deliver higher rates of attendance at health check appointments and to ensure that the department has meaningful mechanisms that it can use to improve rates of uptake of health checks.