UK tops Euro league for costs of heart disease

The UK is shouldering the brunt of economic burden from coronary heart disease, according to new pan-European statistics from the British Heart Foundation and the European Heart Network.
The figures show the UK spends more money on healthcare for the disease per capita than any other country in the EU. The total is £3.4 billion (€5.2 billion) a year - almost a quarter of the EU’s entire spending on CHD.
This spend reflects the huge advances in treatment for heart disease in the UK, meaning it no longer means a quick death - 2.7 million people in the UK are now living with heart disease and require ongoing care.
On top of the healthcare costs, the illness prevents many patients from working and the country loses almost £877 million annually as a result. This represents more than a third of the EU total for lost productivity.
The figures out today also show that informal care for CHD, provided by the unpaid friends and family who’s full-time jobs are looking after heart patients, costs £1.14 billion every year in lost economic productivity, and much more than that in reduced quality of life. Only Germany, with a far larger population than the UK, loses more money.

http://www.bhf.org.uk/news/index.asp?secID=16&secondlevel=241&thirdlevel=1515&artID=6935