Thousands of people with heart problems could die over the next few years due to increasingly long delays in NHS care, ministers have been warned. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) fears that those needing treatment for heart attacks and stroke, diagnostic tests and potentially life-saving surgery could lose their lives while they wait. The first year of Covid-19 brought 5,800 “excess” deaths from heart and circulatory conditions after many NHS services were suspended as hospitals focused on the pandemic. The BHF voiced alarm on Monday that long waits to receive hospital care could see that death toll rise even higher. “Without immediate intervention there is a risk that thousands more people could die from heart and circulatory diseases, despite the NHS going above and beyond during the pandemic,” the BHS said. Its findings come a day after the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast that the number of people on the waiting list for all types of hospital treatment in England could top 15 million by 2025 – almost three times the current total of 5.3 million. A new report from the BHF, The Untold Heartbreak, documents the impact on the health of patients with heart conditions of procedures being cancelled and appointments getting scrapped. It warns that the long delays faced by hundreds of thousands of patients in England awaiting planned hospital care could lead to heart patients’ health worsening, or them becoming inoperable or even dying. The report says: “There is a need to … ensure processes are able to correctly identify those at risk of deteriorating with progressively worse heart disease whilst waiting [for treatment]. “These patients could miss the window of opportunity where treatment can avoid disability and harm or even die while waiting.” The report’s concerns include people waiting to have a stent, pacemaker or mini-defibrilator fitted, or needing heart bypass or valve surgery or a transplant. In his foreword, Prof Simon Ray, a past president of the British Cardiovascular Society, says that if action is taken now to tackle the backlog of heart care “we can avoid preventable deaths and improve the quality of life of the millions of people living with cardiovascular disease in the UK.” Unless ministers and NHS bosses come up with a plan, which includes expanding the heart-care workforce, “cardiovascular disease deaths could continue to rise in both the medium and longer term”, the report says. The BHF fears that the continuing impact of Covid, plus the disruption that a potentially bad winter would bring for the NHS, could hit heart patients waiting for care. The BHF also fears that: The number of heart patients waiting for care could more than double from 231,511 now to 550,385 by January 2024. Getting cardiology care waiting times back to pre-pandemic levels could take between three and five years, potentially until November 2026. The number of people awaiting heart surgery could rise by almost a half, from 10,671 to 15,385, as soon as next February. An NHS source said that the waiting time performance figures that NHS England will release on Thursday, covering time spent waiting in A&E, for non-urgent operations and also cancer care, were likely to be “difficult”, given that hospitals are under pressure from both people with Covid and also those with other ailments. The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond directly to the BHF’s concerns. A spokesperson said only that: “The NHS has faced huge challenges over the past year due to Covid-19 and we continue to support our incredible health and care staff who have kept services open for thousands of patients. “This includes dedicated investment of £1bn this year to tackle the backlog and reduce waiting lists. The NHS is also trialling innovative ways to accelerate elective recovery and enable more hospitals to go further, faster.”