'Heart Tsar' listens to concerns

Angioplasty treats heart attack victims by unblocking arteries

The government's so-called Heart Tsar Professor Roger Boyle is in Suffolk to listen to concerns over plans to send emergency patients outside the county.

Professor Boyle will be at a two-hour "hear the facts" session in Ipswich and talk to doctors and paramedics.

The review comes after public opposition to plans to start treating severe heart attack sufferers from east Suffolk at units elsewhere.

Professor Boyle will return to Suffolk on 6 July to present his findings.

The plan, drawn up by NHS Suffolk and the East of England NHS Specialist Commissioning Group, involved sending patients from east Suffolk to specialist heart attack centres in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Middlesex or Essex.

It was due to go ahead on 1 June but was put on hold while the review wentahead.

'Ensure robustness'

NHS Suffolk said it had asked Professor Boyle to make sure the arrangements for the new service for heart attack patients in east Suffolk are robust.

Professor Boyle will also review the overall provision of the treatment, formerly known as angioplasty, but now called primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI), at Ipswich Hospital.

PPCI involves keyhole surgery that uses small balloons to help unblock arteries.

Patients in east Suffolk who suffer a severe heart attack will continue to receive the current clot-dispersing treatment called pre-hospital thrombolysis.

The NHS has also confirmed that the current drugs used for thrombolysis will continue to be available at all hospitals, including Ipswich Hospital.

They will also be available in ambulances if a patient cannot be taken to one of the specialist heart attack centres in time.