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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1Better Health, Better Care, Scotland's action plan for health and wellbeing, confirmed that both Coronary Heart Disease ( CHD) and stroke remain national clinical priorities in Scotland and committed the Scottish Government to refreshing the national clinical strategy for these conditions.
1.2CHD is a disease of the heart and coronary arteries caused by the build up of fatty materials in the blood vessels that supply the heart with oxygen. This can cause a heart attack, chest pain or angina. Stroke is a "brain attack", caused by a disturbance to the blood supply to the brain. Both CHD and stroke are classed as types of cardiovascular disease ( CVD).
1.3 The Scottish Government's objective for a Healthier Scotland is to "help people to sustain and improve their health, especially in disadvantaged communities, ensuring better, local and faster access to healthcare". This strategy examines the implications of this objective for the way in which we tackle CHD and stroke across Scotland. It sets out a series of potential approaches in order to improve people's experience of care, tackle health inequalities, embed services to a greater extent in local communities and ensure that high quality services are planned and delivered efficiently.
1.4 In developing this draft strategy, we have worked closely with key voluntary sector organisations such as the British Heart Foundation Scotland and Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland ( CHSS). We now hope to build further on these relationships, as we discuss this draft more widely and agree a shared vision and action plan for CHD and stroke in Scotland.
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