UK tops Euro league for costs of living with heart disease

Feb 13 2005

The UK is shouldering the brunt of economic burden from coronary heart disease, according to new pan-European statistics from the British Heart Foundation and the European Heart Network.

The figures show the UK spends more money on healthcare for the disease per capita than any other country in the EU. The total is £3.4 billion (€5.2 billion) a year - almost a quarter of the EU’s entire spending on CHD.

This spend reflects the huge advances in treatment for heart disease in the UK, meaning it no longer means a quick death - 2.7 million people in the UK are now living with heart disease and require ongoing care.

On top of the healthcare costs, the illness prevents many patients from working and the country loses almost £877 million annually as a result. This represents more than a third of the EU total for lost productivity.

But a BHF drive to increase the number of specialist heart nurses is proving a successful way to reduce the economic burden.

The Real Valentine Appeal aims to raise £1 million to fund a further 30 Heart Nurses around the country to improve the care for thousands more of the growing population of heart patients in the UK.

Currently there are just 180 BHF Heart Nurses, who provide vital care and support to more than 50,000 patients, but there are large areas of the UK that currently have no BHF Heart Nurses, leaving a situation of patchy and inadequate provision.

As well as vastly improving the quality of life for patients and removing some of the burden of care from friends and family who often need help themselves, Heart Nurses also have the potential to make economic sense for the NHS.

BHF Heart Nurses have been shown to reduce hospital re-admissions and cardiac liaison nurses can play a major role in secondary prevention, helping heart attack patients improve their lifestyles and reduce their risk of further heart attacks.

The figures out today also show that informal care for CHD, provided by the unpaid friends and family who’s full-time jobs are looking after heart patients, costs £1.14 billion every year in lost economic productivity, and much more than that in reduced quality of life. Only Germany, with a far larger population than the UK, loses more money.

Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the BHF, says: "As survival with heart disease has improved, it has become a long-term, chronic condition for more and more people, rather than a means to a quick death.

"The statistics out today illustrate some of the shortcomings in our methods of caring for the 2.7 million people in the UK who have to live with heart disease.

"The BHF’s Real Valentine Appeal aims to increase the support available to these patients, by funding more specialist nurses who have the expertise to make a real difference to their lives.

"As well as making good medical and moral sense, it makes good financial sense as specialist nurses can streamline a patient’s care so that they don’t need to keep coming back to hospital."

A BHF report, Living with Heart Disease - Patients in Need, revealed how the face of heart disease is changing in the UK, with fewer people dying from the disease year on year, but more people living with it.

It paints a compelling picture of how a patient’s life with heart disease can be a physical, emotional and even financial struggle, and how BHF Heart Nurses can make a massive difference to their quality of life.