Hundreds of heart attack victims dying each year due to missing out on vital NHS rehab

HUNDREDS of heart patients are dying each year after missing out on crucial NHS rehab, experts claim.

Medics say the courses improve survival by a fifth if taken up within five weeks.

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Those taking part are given advice on healthy diets and exercise in a bid to prevent further heart attacks.

But half of the 132,000 eligible Brits fail to do any rehab.

Experts warn thousands are simply not offered a place or choose not to take part.

They claim 720 are needlessly losing their lives each year as a result.

The NHS must do better to boost recovery warns the British Heart Foundation.

It said even when patients do attend classes, seven in 10 rehab programmes are inadequate.

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Dr Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director at the BHF, said: “This research shows the worrying extent to which cardiac rehabilitation services are failing heart patients across the UK, putting them at increased risk of having another potentially fatal heart attack.

“These services are paramount in a patients’ physical and mental recovery and the programmes which are meeting recommendations help save lives.

“Services across the UK need to ensure that at the very least, they are meeting the basic, minimum national standards of care that every heart attack patient should expect to receive.” The study, published in the journal Open Heart, assessed 170 programmes across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It found that just 52 were good enough.

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Rehabilitation can help reduce the risk of death by 18 per cent in the first year after a heart attack and cut readmissions to hospital by a third.

Lead researcher Professor Patrick Doherty, from the University of York, said: “It is clear from the high-performing programmes that quality service delivery is achievable.

“The worry is that programmes that are failing to meet any of the standards are perhaps beyond repair.” Prof Doherty said around six per cent of heart patient die within a year of their attack.

He said increased risk among the 66,000 who miss out on rehab is responsible for around 720 avoidable deaths.