Advances in heart disease treatment at risk after failures of Conservative NHS, experts say
A report into the state of health care in England has found that decades of progress in the fight against heart disease and stroke are being partly undone by the failure of the NHS under the previous government.
The cardiovascular disease statistics from the report by leading surgeon and Labour party colleague Ara Darzi were released by the Department of Health on Thursday ahead of its launch.
Ministers hope this will underline the importance of their role in treating heart disease and stroke within the NHS, and the importance of preventative measures to ease the pressure on services.
Darzi concludes that although the age-adjusted mortality rate from cardiovascular disease declined significantly for people under 75 from 2001 to 2010, “improvements have since stalled and mortality rates began to rise again during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
A contribution to the study by the British Heart Foundation made a similar point: “We are very concerned that the significant progress made in the past 50 years in cardiovascular disease is starting to reverse. The number of people dying from CVD before the age of 75 in England has risen to its highest level in 14 years.”
A Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said: “It is alarming that progress on heart disease and stroke is now slowing. It points to a failure to help people stay healthy, and a failure of the NHS to be there for us when we need it.”
The report highlights the wide regional differences in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. For example, people in Surrey at highest risk of heart attack had to wait an average of less than 90 minutes for a procedure to unblock an artery. In other areas, such as Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes, the wait was up to four hours.
The report also shows a strong link between poverty and the risks that come with it. According to 2022 statistics, people under 75 in the most deprived areas of England are 2.6 times more likely to die from heart disease than those in the wealthiest areas.
The opposition opposes the idea, suggested by Darzi in his report, that the organisation neglected the NHS in England while in power, saying that the organisation failed to take into account other social and demographic pressures it faced.
Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary, told Sky News that while ministers “picked the headlines from the report that they picked”, it was notable that the report focused only on England and not Labour-led Wales, “knowing that the health situation in Wales is much, much worse”.
She was scathing about Wes Streeting, the health minister, saying: “All he has done is give junior doctors a pay rise without any productivity reform.”
Keir Starmer told the BBC on Sunday that Darzi’s report showed that “the previous government ruined the NHS”, adding that “our job now, through Lord Darzi, is to properly understand how that happened and to deliver the reforms”.
The first part of the research findings, published this weekend, highlighted how much children are being let down by the health service.
Streeting said the report will once again highlight the much-debated need for reform in the NHS.
He told Sky News: “I think Lord Darzi, a very experienced clinician with decades of experience in the NHS and experience of serving both Labour and Conservative governments in various capacities, is essentially saying that the NHS is broken but not defeated, and that investment matters, but so does reform.
“And if we don’t change the way the NHS functions as a system, we will continue to see the high price of failure.
“The reason we asked Lord Darzi to write this report was: if you don’t diagnose the patient accurately, you’re not going to prescribe the right treatment.”