Facts and figures

We collect the most comprehensive statistics on the effects, prevention, treatment, costs and causes of cardiovascular disease in the UK.

Statistics are very important to the BHF. They represent the scale of the burden of cardiovascular disease in the UK and the challenges we face.

Along with medical advances and lifestyle changes, the BHF’s pioneering research has helped to nearly halve annual deaths from cardiovascular disease in the UK. However, these conditions still kill around one in four people in the UK. Below are some of our key statistics:

• Cardiovascular disease causes a quarter of all deaths in the UK, that’s more than 170,000 deaths each year – an average of 480 deaths each day or one every three minutes in the UK.
• There are more than 7.6 million people living with a cardiovascular disease in the UK: over 4 million men and over 3.6 million women.
• Coronary heart disease (also known as ischaemic heart disease) is the most commonly diagnosed type of heart disease. It is the most common cause of heart attack and is the single biggest killer of both and men and women worldwide. It's also the single biggest premature killer (before the age of 75) in the UK.
• In the UK there are around 100,000 hospital admissions each year due to heart attacks: that's one every five minutes.
• Around 1.4 million people alive in the UK today have survived a heart attack.
• More than a million people in the UK today have heart failure.
• Strokes cause around 34,000 deaths in the UK each year and are the biggest cause of severe disability in the UK.
• People with a family history of coronary heart disease are much more likely to develop vascular dementia.
• Each day an average of 13 babies are diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in the UK. There are many more diagnoses later in life.
• There are more than 40,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year, with a survival rate of less than 1 in 10.
• More than 5.8 million people in the UK have diabetes - it's estimated that nearly 1.3 million of them are undiagnosed.

You can find a selection of factsheets and more on our heart statistics page. 

This page was last reviewed August 2025. Please contact us to check for updates.