Heart disease mortality improvements have ‘regressed’, review to find

Improvements made in heart disease mortality rates have “stalled”, and even regressed since 2010, an upcoming review of the health service by surgeon and independent peer Lord Darzi is set to find.

The report, commissioned by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, is expected to highlight the full extent of the challenges facing the NHS when it is published on Thursday.

In the report, Lord Darzi will say: “Once adjusted for age, the cardiovascular disease mortality rate for people aged under 75 dropped significantly between 2001 and 2010.

“But improvements have stalled since then and the mortality rate started rising again during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The British Heart Foundation said in its submission to the review: “We are extremely concerned that the significant progress made on heart disease and circulatory diseases (CVD) 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 Department for Health & Social Care spokesperson said there were “wide variations” in the standard of care delivered to patients with cardiovascular problems.

Heart attack patients in some towns and cities wait up to three-and-a-half hours longer for the same procedure than other patients living in the same region, the investigation for the report found.

The time taken for a rapid intervention to unblock an artery has risen by more than half an hour – from an average of 114 minutes in 2013-14 to 146 minutes in 2022-23, the spokesperson said.

They added: “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.

“This Government is acting to cut waiting times and reform the NHS, so it catches illness earlier, which is better for patients and less expensive for our health service.”

It comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the NHS “broken” in ways which are “unforgivable”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir said reforms to the NHS by the Conservatives in power were “hopelessly misconceived”, and blamed the previous government for leaving it in an “awful state” following austerity and the pandemic.

“The last government broke the NHS,” he said.

“Our job now through Lord Darzi is to properly understand how that came about and bring about the reforms, starting with the first steps, the 40,000 extra appointments.

“But we’ve got to do the hard yards of reform as well. And as I say, I think it’s only a Labour Government that can do the reform that our NHS needs, and we’ll start on that journey.”

Criticism of the review from the Conservatives is expected due to Lord Darzi analysing a period of their previous government when he had opposing political ties.

Lord Darzi, a former health minister under Gordon Brown, sat as a Labour peer before resigning from the party in 2019.

The Conservative shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins accused Labour of using Lord Darzi’s health review as “cover” to raise taxes in the upcoming Budget.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Ms Atkins said: “This report, I fear, is cover for the Labour Party to raise our taxes in the budget in October, and they are laying the groundwork for this.

“They weren’t straight with us about winter fuel payments, they’re not being straight with us about taxes, and we need to have a grown-up conversation about the NHS, but this is not the way to go about it.”