Some heart attack patients ‘not receiving best care’

Heart attack patients who have other long-term conditions such as diabetes are less likely to receive “optimum care”, experts have found.

Patients with long-term ailments such as heart or kidney failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have lower survival rates than people without such conditions if they suffer a heart attack.

Researchers from Leeds University set out to investigate why.

The study, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), examined data from the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project across 247 hospitals in England between 2003 and 2013 to assess whether patients received treatments according to guidelines.

Experts examined data on almost 700,000 heart attacks which occurred over the 10-year period.

The research, presented to the European Society of Cardiology conference in Barcelona, found that 40% of patients had at least one long-term condition and of these 89% did not receive optimal care.

They found that patients with long-term problems received 2.7% fewer treatments than those without.

This rose to 7.3% fewer in patients with heart failure and 6.1% in patients with kidney failure. These patients were found to have the highest risk of death.

Overall they found that among patients who did not receive optimal care, there was a 2.5-fold increase in the risk of death for patients who had a long-term condition compared to those who did not.

The authors concluded: “Patients with a long-term condition are less likely to receive optimal care, and do experience lower survival following acute myocardial infarction.

“Patients with heart failure and renal failure received the lowest treatment, were more likely to receive sub-optimal treatment, and experienced lower survival.”

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, BHF medical director, added: “It’s important that all patients receive the best possible treatments, regardless of any other conditions they might have.

“But it’s true that having another long-term condition can complicate things.”