Non-inclusion of heart failure in the 2023 EU4Health Work Programme

Subject: Non-inclusion of heart failure in the 2023 EU4Health Work Programme

Heart failure affects 15 million people across Europe and one in five adults is likely to be diagnosed with heart failure during their lifetime.

Despite proven best practices in approaches to preventing and managing heart failure, the condition remains a serious healthcare challenge across all EU Member States. There are ever-present and common challenges surrounding heart failure, namely, developing new clinical roles and care, implementing diagnostic check-ups and coordinating research data, as well as challenges relating to innovation of health systems and relevant performance assessments. Heart failure still plays a major part in health inequality between Member States.

Cardiovascular conditions are a major health problem affecting millions of EU citizens and are the main cause of death in the EU. Heart failure is also the main cause of hospitalisation among adults over the age of 65 and places a heavy burden on healthcare systems.

In view of this:

Can the Commission explain why cardiovascular conditions, including heart failure, have not been included in the 2023 EU4Health Work Programme as a Commission priority in the field of health, when they pose a threat to the health of EU citizens?

Submitted: 8.11.2023

Answer given by Ms Kyriakides on behalf of the European Commission (22 January 2024)

Cardiovascular diseases and their burden on public health, are addressed under the ‘Healthier Together’ — EU Non- Communicable Diseases (NCDs) initiative (1) which was presented by the Commission in 2022.

Under this initiative and with funding from the EU4Health programme, several actions are being taken forward to address this major public health challenge, for example via a new collaborative action between Member States on cardiovascular diseases and diabetes (JACARDI) (2) which has an unprecedented budget of EUR 53 million under the 2022 work programme (3). This joint action will help Member States in defining actions to prevent cardiovascular diseases as well as in managing them.

Another major collaborative action with EUR 75 million funding under the EU4Health 2022 work programme will address health determinants which are common for cardiovascular diseases and other NCDs. Member States may wish to discuss further actions on cardiovascular diseases in the Expert Group on Public Health (4), and the Commission can support these actions via the collection of best practices (5), which may be transferred and implemented in other Member States.

In this context, considering that major actions on cardiovascular diseases are now being taken forward, the 2023 work programme does not duplicate similar actions.

Nevertheless, it continues to support Member States and stakeholders in implementing actions that address risk factors for NCDs, such as tobacco, alcohol and nutrition.

1 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/non-communicable-diseases/healthier-together-eu-non-communicable-diseases-initiative_en

2 ∙ ⸱ https://bestremap.eu/jacardi-newsletter-november-2023/

3 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/publications/2022-eu4health-work-programme_en

4 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/non-communicable-diseases/expert-group-public-health_en

5 ∙ ⸱ https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/dyna/bp-portal/