Hitting the highest level in more than a decade, early deaths from heart disease are causing the ‘worst crisis in living memory’ for the NHS.
Statistics show that heart disease killed 80 out of 100,000 people in 2022, making it the highest rate since 2011.
After a 60-year decline in the disease, as cases have tumbled since the 1960s, the sudden increase is especially troubling. Experts are pinning the blame on obesity, diabetes and undiagnosed high blood pressure for the reversal of 60 years of positive progress, as well as the lack of care from the NHS which could also be the culprit.
Associate medical director at the BHF and consultant cardiologist, Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, said:
“We’re in the grip of the worst heart care crisis in living memory. Every part of the system providing heart care is damaged, from prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery; to crucial research that could give us faster and better treatment.
“This is happening at a time when more people are getting sicker and need the NHS more than ever. I find it tragic that we’ve lost hard-won progress to reduce early death from cardiovascular disease.”
Even before the rise in death rates, the statistics show that there had been a ‘significant slowdown’ in improvement rates since 2012. Data examined by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), likewise, demonstrated that heart fatalities in people below the age of 75 have now risen for three consecutive years.
Dr. Babu-Narayan continued:
“Increasing pressure in recent years on the NHS and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to have contributed to things getting worse, but warning signs have been present long before.
“Since 2010, decades of progress in cutting deaths from heart disease has stalled and the health gap between rich and poor has markedly widened. People living in the most deprived parts of England have been getting sicker and rates of some cardiovascular conditions have increased.”
In the period between 2012 and 2019, premature death rates for cardiovascular disease in the UK fell by just 11 per cent, compared with 33 per cent between 2005 and 2012.
Meanwhile, more than 39,000 people died prematurely in 2022 due to cardiovascular conditions including heart attacks, coronary heart disease and strokes – averaging 750 such deaths per week. This is the highest the annual total has been since 2008.
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