One in 25 people who die of a heart attack in north-east England could survive if the average cardiologist’s performance was raised to the level of London, research suggests.
The research, carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), looked at the records of over 500,000 NHS patients in the UK over 13 years. It highlights the cruel “postcode lottery” of how people living in some parts of the country have access to lower-quality health care.
The results found that while cardiologists treating patients in London and the south-east had the best survival rates among heart attack patients, patients treated in the north-east and east of England had the worst.
Among 100 otherwise identical patients, an additional six patients living in north-east and east England would have survived at least a year if they had been treated by a similar doctor in London instead.
Furthermore, if the effectiveness of heart attack doctors in these areas of the country were as effective as cardiologists in London, an extra 80 people a year in each region would survive a heart attack.
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The research also revealed a divide between rural and urban England, with patients living in the former generally receiving treatment from less effective doctors than those in more urban areas.
George Stoye, associate director at the IFS and an author of the study, said that cardiologists with the same skills are not consistently found in different parts of the country, meaning that otherwise identical patients have different survival outcomes.
Stoye said: “It is a key principle of the NHS to provide equal access to care for those with equal needs. However, this research shows that patients living in different parts of the country do not have access to the same quality of care. This means that patients living in certain areas – particularly the North East and East of England – receive worse care on average than patients living in other areas. However, even doctors working in the same hospital give very different results.
He added: “Patients do not have much choice about who treats them in an emergency situation and the quality of care they receive will vary depending on when and where they seek care. Recruiting and training doctors takes time, but the research shows that it is important for policymakers to invest in careful quality monitoring to ensure that best practices are widespread and take other steps to ensure equal access to high-quality care across the country.”
Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Where heart attack patients live should not determine the quality of treatment and care they receive.
“But unfortunately, this analysis shows that heart patients experience big differences depending on which part of the country they live in.” We know that this is due to a number of factors, including travel time to a hospital in rural areas, what equipment is available within a hospital and the number of doctors and nurses in a particular area.
“At a time when demand on the NHS has never been greater, we urgently need a fully funded strategy for cardiovascular care. The government must ensure that there are enough heart doctors and nurses who have the tools they need to provide patients with the best care wherever they are.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.
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