One in 25 people who die of a heart attack in the north-east of England could have survived if the average cardiologist’s effectiveness rose to the level of London, research has found.
The research, carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), looked at the records of more than 500,000 NHS patients in the UK over 13 years. It highlights the harsh “zip code 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 worse
Among 100 identical patients, an additional six patients living in the north-east and east of England would have survived at least a year if they had instead been treated by a similar doctor in London.
Furthermore, if the effectiveness of doctors treating heart attacks in these areas of the country were as effective as the cardiologists in London, an additional 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 areas of England, with patients living in the former typically receiving treatment from less effective doctors compared to those in more urban areas.
George Stoye, associate director of the IFS and author of the research, said cardiologists with the same skill are not consistently found in different parts of the country, meaning identical patients have different survival outcomes.
Stoye said: “A key principle of the NHS is to provide equal access to care for people with the same needs. However, this research shows that patients living in different parts of the country do not have the same access quality of care. This means that patients living in certain areas, particularly in the North East and East of England, receive, on average, worse care than patients living in other areas. However, even those doctors working in the same hospital deliver very different results.”
And he added: “Patients have little 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 research shows that it is important for policymakers to invest in ongoing monitoring of quality, to ensure that best practices are widely disseminated, and to take other steps to ensure equal access to a 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 great variation depending on which part of the country they live in. We know this is due to a number of factors, including travel time to hospital in rural areas , what equipment is available within a hospital, and the number of doctors and nurses in a given area.
“At a time when demand on the NHS has never been greater, we urgently need a fully funded cardiovascular care strategy. The Government must ensure that there are enough heart doctors and nurses who have the tools to deliver to patients the best care, wherever they are.”
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.