Thousands waiting more than six weeks for heart health checks

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Twenty times more people than before the pandemic are waiting more than six weeks to have a heart scan in England, a charity has found, as the NHS continues in its attempts to tackle the backlog in care.
The British Heart Foundation said that 64,962 people had waited more than six weeks for an echocardiogram at the end of September 2021, compared with just 3,238 people who had waited this long at the end of February 2020.
Forty-four per cent of people on the waiting list for an echocardiogram had been waiting for longer than six weeks, which the charity suggested was putting lives at risk. In some English regions, this proportion rose to 55%.
Although the NHS has been working hard to tackle the backlog in heart and other tests, which grew when routine tests and procedures were put on hold as the health service focused on treating patients with Covid-19, the BHF found that it was carrying out around 10,000 fewer heart scans each month than before the pandemic.
The charity has urged the government to address the backlog of heart scans by looking at how it can alleviate staff shortages in cardiology and by outlining how the recently-announced diagnostic centres could be used to help diagnose heart conditions.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the BHF, said: “Waiting lists for heart treatments were too long even before the pandemic began, and they are now rising to record levels.
“Yet this is only half the story. Without an echocardiogram, doctors can’t see how well the heart is working and if som