The prescribing of statins in the NHS has risen significantly over the years. In England, prescription items for statins that were dispensed in 2017 had increased by approximately 26 million compared to a decade ago.1 The updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance in 2014, which opened up statins to those with cardiovascular risk of 10–20%, is a likely contributing factor to the increase in the later part of the last decade. More recently, NHS England’s improvement review sets out a plan, part of the wider ‘NHS long term plan’, which aims to …