Poor NHS care means 33,000 patients died needlessly over last ten years

A major study at the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, has revealed that over 33,000 heart attack victims died over the last ten years due to poor NHS treatment.  The study also found that 90% of patients do not receive the correct treatment after a heart attack.

Reasons for this figure (which researchers warned could be twice as high as their estimate) include a failure to stick to international treatment guidelines, which account for a quarter of heart attack deaths in England and Wales, failure to administer certain drugs and not ordering the necessary scans.

The study involved researchers analysing nearly 400,000 cases of the most common heart attack, a non-ST elevation heart attack (NSTEMI), over the course of ten years. During the research, it was checked to see whether these victims had received 13 treatments which were recommended in international guidelines.  They found that 87 per cent of patients had not received at least one of the recommended treatments.

Dr Chris Gale, study leader, said “What we’ve highlighted here is the unacceptable deficit in the care being given to people after they’ve had an NSTEMI heart attack.

“The good news is that now we’ve identified the problem, we can certainly fix it. Simple interventions, such as prescribing statins, are being missed and this is resulting in loss of life.”

The British Heart Foundation’s Professor Peter Weissberg, said “This study shows that many people in the UK are receiving sub-optimal care after a heart attack and that lives are being lost as a consequence. Hospitals need to apply the lessons learnt from this research.”

Jules Payne from the cholesterol charity Heart UK, said “We welcome this research, the results of which are very worrying.”

NHS England’s Prof Huon Gray, national clinical director for heart disease, said “Immediate and long-term survival rates after a heart attack are improving thanks to advances in treatment and aftercare, but this study shows there are opportunities to improve outcomes further.”

He went on to say “National and international guidelines are clear, and these findings should act as a reminder to providers and commissioners of care that best practice should always be followed.”

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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