Better Heart Failure Care Demand

Nearly 5,000 lives a year could be saved if more people with heart failure got specialist care, a report suggests.

The National Heart Failure Audit found about 32% of people with heart failure died within a year of being admitted to hospital in England and Wales.

But the figure drops to 23% for those seen by a hospital cardiologist or cared for in specialist services.

This means the death toll among patients admitted to hospital could fall from 17,000 to 12,000 a year.

Heart failure affects about 900,000 people a year and occurs when the heart has trouble pumping blood around the body, often caused by heart muscle weakness.

The report, compiled by the NHS Information Centre and the British Society for Heart Failure, looked at the records of 21,000 patients