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Several studies have shown that depression is an important predictor of morbidity and mortality in patients with ischaemic heart failure. We have investigated whether clinically recognised depression is linked to mortality in patients with non‐ischaemic heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in the Royal Brompton Hospital (RBH), a tertiary cardiac centre located in London, UK. We retrospectively examined a cohort of 396 consecutive adult patients with DCM who satisfied our inclusion and exclusion criteria identified from an echocardiographic database and the hospital medical records. Mean age was 53±15 years. In all, 83 patients (21%) were clinically depressed, the majority of which (60%) were taking antidepressant therapy. After a follow‐up period of 48 months, 83 (21%) patients died, 15 (4%) underwent cardiac transplantation and 130 (33%) were readmitted; 29 (35%) of the deaths and 40 (31 …