Third ‘given wrong initial heart attack diagnosis’

Almost a third of patients in England and Wales are being given the wrong initial diagnosis after a heart attack – with women having a far higher chance of being affected, a study suggests.

University of Leeds research examined NHS data on about 600,000 heart attack cases over a period of nine years.

Women were 50% more likely than men to have an initial diagnosis different from their final diagnosis, it said.

NHS England said it was working to improve the diagnosis of heart attacks.

The British Heart Foundation is urging people to be aware of the symptoms of a heart attack.

28,000 deaths

The study, which appears in the European Heart Journal – Acute Cardiovascular Care, looked at the UK national heart attack register and was carried out between April 2004 and March 2013.

It involved 243 NHS hospitals in England and Wales which cared for patients who were aged between 18 to 100 years old when they were admitted.

Researchers found that 198,534 patients were initially misdiagnosed.

Up to 28,000 women die from heart attacks each year in the UK, according to British Heart Foundation (BHF). There are also about 275,000 female heart attack survivors in the UK. (bbcnews)