Heart disease costs UK 29.1 billion pounds

Heart disease costs the UK economy over 29 billion pounds a year in healthcare expenditure and lost productivity, a new study claims.

Britain also spends more as a proportion of its health spending on treating cardiovascular disease (CVD) than other European countries, researchers from Oxford University found.

Treating the disease costs some 17.4 billion pounds a year and represents 18 per cent of total healthcare expenditure in the UK, a report from the university?s Health Economics Research Centre concludes.

Based on all UK residents diagnosed with cardiovascular disease in 2004, the study estimates that the NHS spent almost 16 billion pounds treating the disease that year, with private sector healthcare providers spending almost 1.5 billion pounds.

Hospital care was the most expensive component, amounting to almost 10 billion pounds, while the cost of drugs was almost three billion pounds.

While healthcare represented 60 per cent of the cost of treating cardiovascular disease to the UK economy, lost productivity amounted to around 23 per cent.

The study found that over 69 million work days were lost to the disease in 2004, at a cost to the UK economy of almost three billion pounds.

Once informal care by family members was included, the total cost to the UK amounted to over 29 billion pounds, researchers found.

“CVD is a leading public health problem in the UK measured by the economic burden of disease,” said health economist Jose Leal, who conducted the study.

Commenting on the report, British Heart Foundation medical director Peter Weissberg said the cost of cardiovascular disease to the economy was not surprising given that around 40 per cent of all UK deaths were attributed to the condition.

“The unfortunate thing is that we know that much of this disease burden could be reduced or even abolished with appropriate public health measures such as reducing smoking, increasing opportunities for exercise and improving the nation’s diet,” said Mr Weissberg.

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