Cardiac rehabilitation aims to facilitate physical, psychological, and emotional recovery for patients following coronary revascularisation, and evidence suggests that it improves short and long term prognosis.1 Recently theNational service framework for coronary heart disease has stated that by April 2002, 85% of eligible patients should be offered cardiac rehabilitation.1 However, service provision for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) is far from optimal. Male sex and socioeconomic deprivation are associated with risk of cardiovascular disease and are also important factors in use of cardiac investigations, referral and waiting times for CABG itself.2 ,3 More recently this has been reconfirmed with the take up of cardiac rehabilitation among patients following myocardial infarction,4 but not in patients following CABG. We therefore examined determinants of uptake of cardiac rehabilitation in patients following CABG.

Between 1 November 1998 and 31 October 1999 we …