The British Heart Foundation has said that the number of those waiting for a heart ultrasound has increased – with 64,962 people in England alone waiting six weeks or more for a heart ultrasound. It is a dramatic 20-times increase from 3,238 in February last year.
The British Heart Foundation estimates that the number of heart patients waiting for a heart ultrasound, also known as an echo or an echocardiogram, will reach a peak of around 550,385 in Jan 2024 unless urgent action is taken. The purpose of an echo scan is to look at the structure of a patient’s heart after a heart attack or heart failure and to determine what treatment or surgery is required.
Health experts have said that the extensive backlog of heart patients is set to take five years to clear, as they warn that thousands are at risk of dying from treatable conditions. Disruption caused by the COVID crisis has caused waiting lists for life-saving diagnosis and treatment to soar, with the number of people waiting set to double within two years, the analysis from the British charity has found.
Even if a best case scenario were to unfold, it would still take a minimum of three years to get waiting lists down to pre-COVID levels, the charity said. Further, the amount of people waiting specifically for heart surgery is expected to double by February 2022, compared to levels before the COVID crisis, with the list predicted to peak at around 15,384 people.
The British Heart Foundation said that the delays to the scans, which consequently result in delays to treatment, are putting people’s lives at risk, with analysis showing that 44 per cent of patients are now waiting six weeks or more, the highest percentage on record since the data was complied.
The charity explained that reduced access to healthcare due to the COVID crisis has led to a “hidden backlog” of people suffering from heart disease who have not yet been added to waiting lists, with around 10,000 fewer scans taking place each month on average. The worrying findings come as NHS waiting lists to start treatment soared to 5.8 million, with 300,000 people waiting more than one year, and one in 10 people in the UK now on a waiting list to have treatment. 5.8 million in the UK are waiting for operations.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said that the UK is now seeing record levels’ waiting to start treatment : “Waiting lists for heart treatments were too long even before the pandemic began, and they are now rising to record levels.”
She added that the delays are “all the more tragic when effective heart treatments exist” and said that a specific plan was urgently needed to address cardiovascular recovery.
“We need to see a specific plan for cardiovascular care recovery focused on tackling cardiology vacancies, training more heart specialists, and using new diagnostic hubs to deliver delayed heart diagnosis and care.”
Heart and circulatory diseases are the cause of one in four deaths in the UK – 160,000 each year, and about 7.6 million people in Britain live with these diseases. Waiting lists have accelerated since the beginning of the COVID crisis, climbing to a record 5.8 million earlier this month, according to official data. NHS data also worryingly shows that the victims of suspected heart attacks are often having to wait almost an hour for an ambulance, with hospital chief executives reportedly saying that the service is not “at breaking point” and various charities caution that the health service is now “on its knees”.
Chaos also continues to manifest across Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments and ambulance services. This is despite the fact that NHS targets stipulate that those suffering strokes and chest pains, which can denote heart attacks, should be seen within 18 minutes. Yet, the average ambulance response time has snowballed to 54 minutes, up from 24 minutes two years ago, according to NHS data from last month.