Background Currently, little evidence exists on survival and quality of care in cancer patients presenting with acute heart failure (HF). To investigate the presentation and outcomes of hospital admission with acute HF in a national cohort of patients with prior cancer. Methods This retrospective, population-based cohort study, identified 221,953 patients admitted to hospital in England for HF during 2012-2018 (12,867 with a breast, prostate, colorectal or lung cancer diagnosis in the previous 10 years). We examined the impact of cancer on 1) HF presentation and in-hospital mortality, 2) place of care, 3) HF medication prescribing, and 4) post-discharge survival, using propensity score weighting and model-based adjustment. Results HF presentation was similar between cancer and non-cancer patients. A lower percentage of patients with prior cancer were cared for in a cardiology ward (-2.4 percentage point difference [ppd] [95% CI -3.3, -1.6]) or were prescribed ACEi/ARB for HFrEF (-2.1 ppd [-3.3, -0.9]) than non-cancer patients. Survival after HF discharge was poor with median survival of 1.6 years in prior cancer and 2.6 years in non-cancer patients. Mortality in prior cancer patients was driven primarily by non-cancer causes (68% of post-discharge deaths). Conclusions Survival in prior cancer patients presenting with acute HF was poor, with a significant proportion due to non-cancer causes of death. Despite this, cardiologists were less likely to manage cancer patients with HF. Cancer patients who develop HF were less likely to be prescribed guideline-based HF medications compared with non-cancer patients. This was particularly driven by patients with a poorer cancer prognosis.