Heart care revamp unveiled

More bypass operations are being carried out

No patient will be left waiting for more than a year for heart bypass surgery by spring next year, the government has pledged.

Eight major hospitals will have their cardiac units completely rebuilt at a total cost of £170m as part of a government drive to boost the number of heart operations.

Ministers have already announced new units at four other hospitals, and now say they are well ahead of schedule in providing "rapid-access chest pain clinics" for patients.

Heart centres to be revamped

Blackpool

Liverpool

Manchester (South and Central)

Southampton

Sheffield

Leeds

Plymouth

They are now dividing up more than £300m set aside as part of its NHS Plan - and by the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund on a range of measures to revamp heart care.

Mr Milburn intends to use private hospitals to ensure he meets his waiting time target for heart bypass patients.

The current maximum wait for bypass surgery is 18 months - and the government says the eventual target should be only three months.

The aim of its National Service Framework on Coronary Heart Disease is to help reduce heart disease deaths by 40% by 2010.

Up to 1,800 more heart operations will be paid for by £15m from the latest batch of government money.

£65m from the New Opportunities Fund and £15m from ministers will pay for extra angiography and catheterisation laboraties, which help diagnose heart disease patients.

Heart disease and cancer remain the biggest killers - it's important that we deal with them

Alan Milburn, Health Secretary

The Health Secretary said of the 12-month limit: "I know that is still an awfully long time to wait if you are on a waiting list, but it's a lot better than we have been previously."

He said he saw it as a "staging post" towards further improvements, and said it would be achieved by "partial" use of the private sector.

Mr Milburn also said that £35m would be spent on services geared at rehabilitation treatment for those who already have heart disease, heart failure and to help GPs tackle the illness.

Fast-track pain

Smoking is a significant risk factor for heart disease, and many cancers, and UK services helping people quit, he said, were "the envy of the world."

He said that the number of bypass operations carried out was already climbing, and that 150 fast-track chest pain clinics had been opened, compared to the 100 promised earlier by the government.

Despite calculations by the British Thoracic Society which suggest that the combined forms of lung disease form the "biggest killers" in the UK, Mr Milburn said that the government was right to give priority to heart disease, stroke and cancer.

National plans for improving care have been drawn up for these, but not for lung disease.

He said: "Heart disease and cancer remain the biggest killers - it's important that we deal with them.

"I don't think we need to get into a bidding war about which disease kills the most - it depends which way you cut pack - within lung disease the biggest killer is lung cancer."

Stroke survival

However, Liberal Democrat health spokesman Dr Evan Harris said that the national framework on heart disease contained many targets, and that the government might only be highlighting those which it had met, not those areas in which it had failed to make an impression.

More research has highlighted the wide disparity in stroke survival rates from region to region across the UK.

Those who attend hospitals with the highest death rates are 70% more likely to die following a stroke, according to a survey published in the Times.

Among the trusts with the highest death rates are Walsall Hospitals, Blackpool Victoria Hospitals, Sandwell Healthcare in West Bromwich, and Bolton Hospitals.

Low death rate trusts included Barts and The Royal London, and Central Sheffield University Hospital.

Professor Sir Charles George, Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, comments; "The BHF is delighted that tackling heart disease remains one of the Government's top priorities. This new cash injection into cardiac services is another major step in the battle to beat heart disease - which claims more lives than any other disease in the UK.

"Thanks to improvements in early diagnosis, treatments and rehabilitation we are now seeing a decrease in the number of people who die every year from heart disease. But there are still far too many premature deaths from all forms of heart disease - especially from heart attacks, which alone claim the lives of around 135,000 people each year.