Britain spends 18 percent of healthcare budget on heart disease |
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Mon, 15 May 2006 12:55
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LONDON - Britain spends around 18 percent of its total healthcare budget on heart disease, a new report says. Researchers from the Health Economics Research Center at the University of Oxford have reported their findings and estimations in the online edition of the journal Heart.
Cardiovascular disease costs the UK £29 billion in treatment as well as lost productivity says the report, which is based on all cases diagnosed in 2004 and their cost of treatment. For the NHS, the bill was a whopping £16 billion, while 69 million workdays were lost as a result of the disease.
The researchers estimated that healthcare made up to 60 percent of the cost, while lost productivity accounted for 23 percent and informal care made up for the rest. The private sector ran up a bill in excess of £1.5 billion. Hospital in-patient care was thee single most expensive component at £10 billion.
Reacting to the report Professor Peter Weissberg, of the British Heart Foundation said that since heart disease was the number one killer in the country, it was not surprising that the cists were astronomical, "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," he added. "This study should stimulate policy makers to reconsider public health measures to reduce the massive burden of cardiovascular disease in the UK."
Drug costs for the treatment mounted up to £3 billion. Writing in the editorial accompanying the article, Dr Georgios Lyatzopoulos of the Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority stressed that obesity was rising and this would continue to increase the rates of death and disease.
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