LIFE-SAVING STATINS FOR 25M BRITS

‘This is good news and will help reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes’

- Giles Sheldrick

LIFE-SAVING statins will be offered to millions more Britons.

Health chiefs are convinced the move will dramatically slash heart attacks and stroke deaths, saving thousands of lives.

Until now only those with a 10 per cent or higher risk of a “cardiovascular event” over 10 years were offered the pills.

But the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, the drugrationing body, has recommended prescribing the one-a-day tablets for those at much lower risk.

As many as 15 million people in England aged 25 to 84 who have 10-year risk lower than 10 per cent could benefit.

Nice does say people must have a degree of risk to be offered statins.

Paul Chrisp, director of the Centre for Guidelines at Nice, said: “For people with a less than 10 per cent risk over 10 years of a first heart attack or stroke, the decision to take a statin should be left to patients after an informed discussion.

“The evidence is clear, in our view, that statins are an appropriate choice to reduce that risk.”

New NHS guidance underlines people should be able to opt in to having the cholesterol-busting drugs.