Economic cost of heart disease
Heart disease costs the UK economy £29 billion a year, according to a study by the Health Economics Research Centre at Oxford University, and published in medical journal 'Heart' in summer 2006. Their figure of £29 billion includes the economic burden of informal care for people with CVD by their relatives.
Britain spends more of its health budget on heart disease than any other EU country the study suggests. The Health Economics Research Centre based its findings on UK residents diagnosed with cardiovascular disease in 2004.
They calculated the costs from:
- Community health and social services
- Emergency care
- Hospital stays
- Informal care when relatives or friends look after all ill person
- Impact on productivity from illness and premature death
The breakdown of the bill was approximately:
- Costs to the NHS and private healthcare 60%
- Lost productivity 23 %
- Informal care 17%
The study shows the scale of the public health problem CVD poses to the UK in terms of economic burden.
Visit: http://heart.bmjjournals.com/
'Heart' is a subscription based peer reviewed journal for health professionals.