A new survey has found that hospital admissions in the UK due to heart failures have increased by nearly 33% in the last five years.
According to the British Heart Foundation (BHF), the number of heart failure admissions jumped from 65,025 in 2013/14 to 86,474 in 2018/19.
In the same period, hospital admissions due to other reasons rose by 11%.
Patients with heart ailments are admitted in the hospital for an average of ten days, double the usual average. Accordingly, the massive increase is also adding huge burden on the health service, the report added.
It noted that several factors contributed to the massive increase including growing population and heart attack survivors.
The increasing number of people suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes also accelerated the increase.
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By GlobalDataIt’s estimated that the disease has affected around 920,000 people in the UK.
BHF Medical Director Nilesh Samani said: “Heart failure poses a growing and increasingly complex challenge, not only for people living with the condition, but for those who care for them too. It’s concerning to see yet another increase in hospital admissions – an indication that how we diagnose, treat and care for these patients could be far better.
“There is no cure for heart failure, but with access to the right services and support, people can go on to have a good quality of life for many years. We need to find new and improved ways of delivering this care, including in communities rather than hospitals.
“Doing so will improve thousands of lives and relieve the unsustainable pressure that heart failure is putting on our health service.”
However, the BHF recommends that improving detecting, diagnosing and managing heart failures may help to improve the situation.
Specialist blood tests and equipping the general practitioners (GPs) with heart scans may also facilitate heart failure diagnosis.