24 March 2004
Deaths from cardiovascular disease fell by more than 23 per cent between 1995/97 and 2000/02, according to a report out today.
Coronary heart disease is a preventable disease that kills more than 110,000 people in England every year. It is the country’s single biggest killer.
‘Winning the War on Heart Disease’ shows that eighty per cent of heart attack patients received life-saving thrombolysis treatment within 30 minutes of hospital arrival in 2003. Less than forty per cent received the treatment in 2000.
No heart patients are expected to wait over six months for an operation by the end of this month, says the report. Over 2,700 patients faced waiting over six months in 2002.
Health Secretary John Reid said the report shows that “excellent progress” had been made over the last seven years.
“Fewer people are dying and emergency care is vastly improved,” he said.
The Health Secretary said that the government were committed to further improving services. He announced a further £20m for new cardiac facilities in Dorset & Somerset and Newcastle Primary Care Trusts - bringing spending on new or expanded heart surgery hospitals to £600m.
He also announced:
- £1m to scope the possibility of providing a procedure to unblock the arteries on hospital admission, which if implemented would be the first of its kind on the world; and
- Patients will be given the choice of where they have surgery from April 2005 as soon as they’re told that they need an operation.
“We need to ensure that every heart attack patient receives optimal treatment and that progress is consistent across the country,” said Mr Reid.
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