“Broken hearted – a spotlight on cardiovascular disease” sets out recommendations for the UK government stating “in the interest of health, wellbeing, prosperity and fairness, we need to raise our ambition on CVD.”

CVD is highly preventable with 80 per cent of deaths avoidable. Since 2010, progress in CVD prevention has slowed with the paper suggesting we would have had 30,000 fewer deaths in 2019 if we had maintained even half the progress we had between 2005 and 2010.

We can do better, so says the report which is calling for action on obesity, preventative medicines, exercise, tobacco and air pollution to save lives and help people stay in work. (Heart disease is the single largest factor behind people leaving the workforce due to ill health).