PATIENTS in the Bradford City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) have one of the lowest rates of heart failure in the country, according to new figures from Public Health England.

There were 615 people living with the condition in 2016-17, the most recent period for which data has been released. It means heart failure affected 476 in every 100,000 patients on doctors' books, the 13th-lowest rate in England.

It represents a 10.2 per cent decrease on the rate for patients in the Bradford City CCG in 2009-10, when data was first recorded, making it the tenth-most significant drop in the country.

Heart failure is a condition where the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly. It is most commonly caused by a heart attack.

It is the only major cardiovascular disease - meaning those relating to the heart and blood vessels - which is becoming more common.

The condition costs the NHS over £2 billion a year.

The picture is different for patients in the Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Group, where the number of those living with heart failure has risen by more than 10 per cent.

There were 2,774 people living with the condition in the Bradford Districts CCG in 2016-17, 278 more than in 2009-10, when data was first recorded.

This means heart failure affected 822 in every 100,000 patients.

But patients in the Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group have bucked the national trend with decreasing heart failure rates.

There were 1,549 people living with the condition in 2016-17, which means heart failure affected 977 in every 100,000 patients on doctors' books.

It represents a 0.3 per cent decrease on the rate for 2009-10.

In Bradford City, 125 people were admitted to hospital with heart failure in 2016-17, a rate of 366 in every 100,000 people.

That figure stood at 496 for Bradford Districts, a rate of 192 in every 100,000 people and 247 for Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven, a rate of 136 in every 100,000 people.

Ashleigh Doggett, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Heart failure is a cruel and debilitating illness affecting more than half a million people across the UK.

"In the last ten years, more people have been diagnosed with the condition, with sufferers in severe cases often having poorer survival rates than many cancers.

"Currently, heart failure is incurable and difficult to treat, which may explain why survival rates for the condition are not improving."

The most common symptoms of heart failure are breathlessness, fatigue and swollen ankles and legs.

Prevalence of heart failure was highest in Fylde and Wyre, Lancashire in 2016-17, with 1,547 in every 100,000 patients affected - nearly five times the rate in London's Wandsworth, where it affected just 320 in 100,000.

A spokesperson for NHS Bradford and Craven CCGs said:“Heart failure is a significant cause of death nationally and working to help prevent these deaths is an important part of the work carried out across all three CCGs in the Bradford district and Craven.

“The Bradford Districts CCG’s Bradford’s Healthy Hearts program was launched in 2015 and has seen improvements to the medical care of over 22,000 people so far. Around a year and a half after the launch of the program, there were 211 fewer heart attacks and strokes in the CCG.

“There has been a push to use blood pressure testing to identify more people with heart failure as well as a redesign of the local heart failure services delivered in hospital over the past three years.

“This year, we have extended the Bradford’s Healthy Hearts initiative to cover the Bradford City CCG area and we are hoping to replicate the success of the programme in Bradford Districts CCG

“The next phase of the Bradford’s Healthy Hearts program includes a programme to improve the way the condition is managed and this will be reviewed by the CCG in the near future.

“High blood pressure is a major cause of heart failure and there is also work underway to develop a programme to treatment people with high blood pressure across the whole of the West Yorkshire and Harrogate health and care partnership.

“Nationally there has been a trend of improved survival rates after heart failure in the last decade but people who have heart failure still have a poor prognosis.

"We are also working with people across Bradford district and Craven to ensure they live healthier lifestyles which is the best way of preventing heart failure in the long run; enabling them to live longer and with a better quality of life.”