Heart patients benefit from hospital's rehab programme

A report by Heart UK has revealed that Yeovil District Hospital is the fifth best hospital in the country for patients taking advantage of cardiac rehabilitation programmes. 

Entitled “After the event: Getting care right for patients after a heart attack” the report published a table of the top ten hospitals with the highest percentage of patients taking advantage of cardiac rehabilitation for the years 2008/9-2010/11.

It revealed that nationally patients accepting invitations to undergo cardiac rehabilitation ranged from just 36.7% to 99.8% with Yeovil achieving 91.7% with 1051 patients benefitting from the treatment between 2008 and 2011.

Senior Cardiology Nurse at Yeovil District Hospital, Ashley Davidson said: “Good treatment needs to be coupled with cardiac rehabilitation if optimal recovery is to be achieved for patients.

“Cardiac rehabilitation is a programme of exercise, which is carried out in our well-equipped gym, supported by information sessions that help people to get back to everyday life as quickly as possible after a heart attack or heart surgery. These programmes are designed to help people to understand their condition and make a good recovery - they support them in making lifestyle changes to help improve their heart health and understand their treatment and ultimately reduce the risk of a heart attack.”

Note to editors:

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the UK’s biggest killer - around one in five men and one in seven women die from the disease. Each year, there are around 94,000 deaths from CHD in the UK and around 2.6 million people are living with the condition.

For more information contact Ashley Davidson on 07789 006860