According to the head of NHS, Thousands of lives have been saved by giving blood-thinning drugs to individuals who are facing various heart conditions which puts them at risk of getting a stroke.
Since January 2022, In England around 460,000 individuals who suffer from atrial fibrillation (AF) – which is a dangerously irregular heart rate – have started taking one of four anticoagulant drugs which has been proved to reduce the risk of getting a stroke.
According to Amanda Pritchard, Immediate rollout of the drugs have kept 4,000 individuals alive who would otherwise have died and also prevented about 17,000 strokes. Generally, in England strokes kill about 27,000 individuals a year and lead to about 120,000 being admitted to hospital.
An NHS-wide drive to encourage take-up of the drugs means that 90% of the 1.5 million individuals in England with AF are presently using and disability, given that AF causes about one in five strokes.
At the King’s Fund health thinktank’s annul conference, the Chief executive of NHS England, Pritchard mentioned that, “The fast rollout of these drugs is a massive step forward to provide the best possible care for patients with cardiovascular disease.”
The drugs, called out a direct oral anticoagulant, which helps to stop blood from clotting, thereby reducing the risk of a clot developing and causing a stroke. In 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence suggested that doctor should prescribe four anticoagulants: rivaroxaban, dabigatran, edoxaban and apixaban. Edoxaban is the most commonly prescribed by doctors.
Dr Maeva May, the Stroke Association’s director of policy and research hailed the widespread use of the drugs as a great news because AF accounts for one in five strokes and strokes in individual with AF are more severe and are more likely to result in death or serious disability. She also added that, the correct medication can prevent most of the AF-related strokes.
NHS England has used its spending power to cut deals with the producers of the four drugs, which has made them much more widely available. The British Heart Foundation admired the NHS’s great progress towards its goal to reduce stroke deaths.
