Nearly a million people in the UK are living with heart failure
Louise Calland, Government Affairs Manager
| Novartis UK
Novartis is partnering with the British Society for Heart Failure at this year’s Labour and Conservative conferences, to raise awareness of heart failure more broadly and to launch its manifesto for change.
There are now nearly a million people living with heart failure across the UK. To put that number in to perspective, it’s similar to the amount of people living with the four most common forms of cancer (breast, prostate, lung and bowel) combined. This is a progressive, potentially life-threatening condition and occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood around the body. It also, perhaps unsurprisingly, has a huge impact on the NHS.
Heart failure costs the health service around £2.3billion annually, equivalent to 2% of its entire budget. It also places a huge burden on those living with the condition as well, and sadly as many as 30-40% of those diagnosed with heart failure die within the first year of diagnosis.
Worryingly, projections indicate that many more will be diagnosed with heart failure in the coming years, due to the impacts of an ageing population and rising levels of obesity.
Despite these sobering figures, there are real opportunities to improve the quality of heart failure care that people receive, as well as wider outcomes in the area for the NHS.
Novartis are therefore delighted to be partnering with the British Society for Heart Failure at this year’s Labour and Conservative conferences, through the hosting of reception events in Liverpool and Birmingham respectively. We hope to use these events to raise awareness of heart failure more broadly and to launch our manifesto for change.
In addition to unveiling two clear policy asks to politicians, we are excited to be showing an exclusive screening of a short excerpt at our reception events of a major new heart failure documentary, which tells the powerful story of a father living with heart failure and the impact that the diagnosis has had on him and his family.
We also look forward to welcoming speeches from Julie Cooper MP, Shadow Minister for Community Health (Labour Conference), Maggie Throup MP, PPS to Department of Health and Social Care and former Chair of the APPG on Heart Disease (Conservative conference), the British Society for Heart Failure, and the patient who is bravely telling his story.
To find out more about our activity, or to RSVP for these unique reception events (details of which are below), please contact heartfailure@mandfhealth.com (0207 492 1783).
Labour Party Conference Reception Event
Date: Tuesday 25th September
Time: 17:00 – 18:30
Location: Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre, Concourse Room 4 (adjacent to secure zone – do not need delegate pass to attend)
Conservative Party Conference Reception Event
Date: Tuesday 2nd October
Time: 15:45 – 17:00
Location: Birmingham Hyatt Regency Hotel, Scherzo Suite (within secure zone)
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