Economic burden of cardiovascular disease in the United Kingdom

Direct (medical and non-medical) and indirect (production losses and informal care) costs of cardiovascular disease (CVD) have been captured in two previous United Kingdom (UK) cost-of-illness studies, but the areas of long-term care and medical device costs were neglected. We aimed to quantify the economic burden of CVD in the UK from a societal perspective between the fiscal years 2019/20 and 2021/22.

Mixed-methods study in a prevalence-based retrospective review of economic costs focused on the public sector. Top-down costing was applied to the following areas: inpatient hospital care, outpatient specialist care, emergency care, primary care, medications, medical devices, long-term care, production losses to morbidity, and production losses to mortality. Bottom-up costing was used by applying the marginal effects of having a CVD on several parameters using survey data from the Survey on Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe to estimate informal care costs. The modelling performed shows that the total costs of CVD in the UK in 2021/22 were £29.021 billion (bn), with direct costs of £16.620 bn and indirect costs of £12.402 bn. The breakdown of direct costs for the UK were inpatient care (£6.732 bn), long-term care (£4.649 bn), medications (£1.940 bn), primary care (£1.556 bn), outpatient care (£1.011 bn), emergency care [£327.6 million (mn)], and medical devices (£404.4 mn). The breakdown of indirect costs for the UK were informal care costs (£6.377 bn), production losses to mortality (£4.544 bn), and production losses to morbidity (£1.481 bn).

There is a significant economic burden of CVD in the UK, with the highest direct cost resulting from inpatient care and the highest indirect cost resulting from informal care.