Hospitals are wasting millions of pounds a year on unnecessary treatments for heart attacks and strokes, leading cardiologists have warned.
Calling for a complete overhaul of NHS cardiac care, experts say that we should focus on prevention rather than cure.
Writing in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, the doctors said that we are carrying out too many invasive heart operations which have not been proven to actually save lives.
Instead of spending millions on potentially dangerous operations, the NHS should instead stop more people smoking, encourage exercise and improve diets, they say.
Overall, unnecessary treatments cost the NHS at least £2.4billion a year.
The researchers, led by heart consultant Dr Aseem Malhotra, write in an opinion piece for the journal: ‘The cost of overuse in cardiology is particularly high because of the high incidence of cardiac disease and the increasing use of expensive procedures and devices.’
The authors include Sir Muir Gray, former chief of knowledge for the NHS, Dr Andrew Apps of Oxford John Radcliffe Hospital, and Harvard cardiologist Dr Vikas Saini.
The doctors point to the results of a recent Imperial College study, in which scientists found that expensive intra-aortic balloon pumps - inserted into the heart in the wake of a heart attacks - have not actually reduced death rates
