Progress in heart disease treatment at risk after Tories’ NHS failures, say experts

Decades of progress in tackling heart disease and strokes risks unravelling in part because of NHS failures under the last government, a report into the state of the health service in Englandwill argue.

The statistics on cardiovascular disease from the report by the eminent surgeon and Labour peer Ara Darzi, were released by the health department before its launch on Thursday.

Ministers hope to both highlight what they see as the scale of their task over treatment of heart disease and strokes on the NHS, and to stress the importance of preventative measures to ease pressures on the service.

Darzi concludes that while the age-adjusted mortality rate for cardiovascular disease dropped significantly for people under 75 from 2001 to 2010, “improvements have stalled since then and the mortality rate started rising again during the Covid-19 pandemic”.

A submission to the inquiry by the British Heart Foundation made a similar point: “We are extremely concerned that the significant progress made on heart disease and circulatory diseases in the last 50 years is beginning to reverse. The number of people dying before the age of 75 in England from CVD has risen to the highest level in 14 years.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care said: “It’s alarming that the progress made on heart disease and stroke is now in decline. 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 will set out significant regional disparities over treatment for cardiovascular disease, saying that while people in Surrey at the highest risk of a heart attack waited an average of less than 90 minutes for a procedure to unblock an artery, this rose to four hours in other areas, such as Bedford, Luton, and Milton Keynes.

The report also points to the close correlation between poverty and the risk posed from the conditions, with under-75s in the most deprived regions of England 2.6 times more likely to die from heart disease than those in the richest areas, according to 2022 statistics.

The opposition has pushed back against the idea seemingly implied in Darzi’s report that it neglected the NHS in England when in government, arguing that this failed to take account of other societal and demographic pressures it faced.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary, told Sky News that while ministers were “choosing the headlines they pick” from the report, it was notable that it focused only on England and not Labour-run Wales, “knowing full well that the health situation in Wales is far, far worse”.

She was scathing about Wes Streeting, the health secretary, saying: “The only thing he’s done is to give junior doctors a pay rise with no productivity reform.”

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Keir Starmer said Darzi’s report showed “the last government broke the NHS”, adding that “our job now through Lord Darzi is properly understand how that came about and bring about the reforms”.

An initial tranche of the review’s findings published this weekend highlighted how children are being let down by the health service.

Streeting said the report would again highlight the much-discussed need for reform in the NHS.

He told Sky News: “I think what Lord Darzi, who is a very experienced clinician with decades of experience in the NHS and experience of serving both Labour and Conservative governments in different capacities, what he essentially says is the NHS is broken, but not beaten, and the investment matters, but so does reform.

“And if we don’t change the way that the NHS works as a system, then we will continue to see a heavy price for failure.

“The reason why we asked Lord Darzi to do this report was, if you don’t provide an accurate diagnosis for the patient, you’re not going to prescribe the right treatment.”