IPM Take
Cancer has dominated European health policy for years. Cardiovascular disease, despite remaining the continent’s leading cause of death, has often received less political attention. The Safe Hearts Plan changes that. The significance of the initiative is not only its focus on prevention and screening, but its attempt to create a coordinated European framework for cardiovascular health. The comparison with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan is inevitable. The question now is whether cardiovascular disease can achieve the same political momentum, funding and implementation focus that transformed cancer policy across Europe.
Executive Summary
The European Commission has launched a Call for Evidence on cardiovascular health checks as part of the implementation of the EU Safe Hearts Plan, Europe’s first comprehensive cardiovascular health strategy. The consultation seeks input from patients, healthcare professionals, researchers, industry and civil society on the future of cardiovascular screening and early detection. Cardiovascular disease remains responsible for approximately 1.7 million deaths annually across the European Union. The initiative represents a major shift toward prevention, earlier diagnosis and reduction of cardiovascular inequalities across Member States.
Why it matters
- Policymakers: Creates the first EU-wide framework dedicated specifically to cardiovascular health and prevention.
- Healthcare systems: Could accelerate adoption of cardiovascular screening, risk assessment and earlier intervention strategies.
- Clinicians: May lead to more standardised approaches to cardiovascular prevention and detection across Europe.
- Patients: Earlier identification of cardiovascular risk factors could help prevent avoidable heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths.
For years, European health policy has had a flagship programme for cancer.
Now cardiovascular disease wants its equivalent.
The European Commission’s Safe Hearts Plan, launched in late 2025, represents the first dedicated European strategy aimed at tackling cardiovascular disease, the condition responsible for approximately 1.7 million deaths every year across the European Union.
The initiative is now entering its next phase.
In April 2026, the Commission launched a Call for Evidence focused on cardiovascular health checks, inviting stakeholders to contribute to the development of a future EU Protocol on Health Checks. The consultation aims to gather input on how Europe should approach prevention, screening and early detection of cardiovascular disease.
The timing is significant.
Despite decades of progress in treatment, cardiovascular disease remains Europe’s leading cause of death and disability. Yet screening and prevention efforts remain uneven across Member States. According to the Commission, fewer than half of EU countries currently operate dedicated cardiovascular screening programmes, while more than one-third of Europeans aged 25 to 64 report not having had their blood pressure measured within the previous year.
The Safe Hearts Plan seeks to change that.
The strategy adopts a life-course approach spanning prevention, early detection, treatment, rehabilitation and long-term care. It also proposes the development of an EU Protocol on Health Checks covering cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, recognising the growing overlap between these conditions and their shared risk factors.
Importantly, the initiative goes beyond traditional prevention.
The Plan explicitly references inherited cardiovascular risk factors such as familial hypercholesterolaemia and lipoprotein(a), while promoting greater use of digital tools, registries and data-driven approaches to support earlier diagnosis and personalised care. The proposed EU CVD Inequalities Dashboard is also intended to help identify disparities between countries and population groups, supporting more targeted policy responses.
This reflects a broader shift occurring across healthcare.
Precision medicine is no longer confined to oncology. Increasingly, cardiovascular care is moving toward earlier risk identification, biomarker-driven prevention and personalised intervention strategies.
That creates both opportunity and challenge.
The World Heart Federation welcomed the Plan’s ambition but noted important gaps, including workforce shortages across cardiology, nursing and primary care, as well as limited attention to environmental determinants of cardiovascular health such as air pollution. These implementation barriers may ultimately determine whether the strategy succeeds.
For IPM, the Safe Hearts Plan represents something larger than a cardiovascular initiative.
It is a test of whether Europe can apply the lessons learned from cancer policy to another major non-communicable disease. Ambition is no longer the issue. Delivery is.
Full roadmap available here: https://www.cardiovascular-alliance.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/EACH-A-EUROPEAN-CARDIOVASCULAR-HEALTH-PLAN-THE-ROADMAP_FINAL_WEB.pdf.
