Heart Diseases: Health Services
(asked on 17th July 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the recovery pathways for the care of patients who have had a sudden cardiac arrest not related to myocardial infarction.
A cardiac arrest is caused by a dangerous abnormal heart rhythm, which occurs when the heart isn’t working properly and causes the heart to stop beating. Each year approximately 30,000 people receive resuscitation for an out of hospital cardiac arrest in the United Kingdom.
Only one in 10 people that have a cardiac arrest survive to go home from hospital. Fast and effective action will help save the lives of people suffering a cardiac arrest, as the chances of survival from a cardiac arrest that occurs out of hospital doubles if the person receives immediate resuscitation or a high energy shock to the heart, known as defibrillation.
The National Health Service committed to improving community first response and building defibrillator networks to help save 4,000 lives by 2028. This is being supported by educating the general public, including young people of school age, about how to recognise and respond to an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
NHS England is also working with partners such as the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to harness new technology and ensure the public and emergency services are able to rapidly locate this life saving equipment in an emergency.
Patients who survive cardiac arrest and their families are supported through referral to local NHS services, and this will include rehabilitation such as cardiac and neurological rehabilitation and mental health services for psychological support.
There are different pathways for cardiac arrest survivors, depending on the severity of the damage caused by the cardiac arrest. For people being discharged from secondary care and those with ischemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, cardiac rehabilitation services are available in every region.
In December 2024, to support local systems to commission high quality cardiac rehabilitation, NHS England published Commissioning standards for cardiac rehabilitation, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/commissioning-standards-for-cardiovascular-rehabilitation/
These standards of care complement the British Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation’s Standards and Core Components document, published in 2023, to support the delivery of high-quality care and adherence to evidenced-based practice. Further information on the British Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation’s Standards and Core Components document is available at the following link:
The national audit for cardiac rehabilitation assesses practices against these standards of care and publishes the results annually, with the 2024 report available at the following link:
https://www.cardiacrehabilitation.org.uk/site/docs/NCP_CR%20Certification_Report_2024_Final.pdf
NHS England is committed to improving support for cardiac arrest survivor. NHS England has provided additional funding to all ICBs to increase the provision of cardiac rehabilitation across England, where clinically indicated patients can access cardiac rehabilitation following cardiac arrest.
For patients with more complex needs it may be appropriate for them to be referred to Level 1 or 2 inpatient specialist services for short term post-acute rehabilitation, which may be followed by specialist rehabilitation in the community as appropriate.
Patients and their families may also be signposted to appropriate charities such as the BHF’s Cardiac arrest webpage and the Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK’s website, with further information available on both, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/conditions/cardiac-arrest