The Framingham Heart Study investigators have recently developed new coronary risk appraisal functions which relate risk factors to the short-term probability of experiencing cardiovascular disease events. We populated the risk appraisal functions with UK data and estimated that approximately 256,000 new coronary artery disease (CAD) events occur annually in the UK. Approximately half of the estimated CAD events were acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) and almost three quarters occurred in men. Our estimates fit well with hospital in-patient data but less well with British Heart Foundation estimates of AMI and angina. Differences between US and UK relative risks, clinical practice and populations may account for these discrepancies. Our estimates may be considered as a lower limit of the annual number of UK CAD events.