The National Heart Foundation has apologised for its controversial awareness campaign that suggests people who don’t check their heart health don’t love their families enough.

The apology comes within days of ‘Heartless Words’, which includes one ad with a mother telling her son, “Every time I said I loved you I was lying.”

In another ad, a young girl sitting on her mother’s hospital bed, tells her mum: “It’s not just your heart you didn’t care about. It’s all of ours, and now we are going to have to live with the consequences.”

The campaign — dubbed “heartless” by Dr Sue Walker, a Melbourne obstetrician — is designed to encourage Australians to visit their GP for a checkup following the introduction of MBS item 699 in April.