Heart bypass waiting times fall

Patients are not waiting as long for heart operations

Waiting times for heart bypass operations have plummeted over the last six years, an NHS report has revealed.

The median wait for bypasses in Scotland fell from 195 days in the year ending June 1997 to just 53 days by June 2003 - a reduction of nearly five months.

At the same time the number of patients treated overall for revascularisation procedures rose from 4,661 to 7,024.

The report was released by the Scottish Coronary Revascularisation Register.

It examined progress in heart treatment between 1997 and 2003.

The waiting time drop covered operations for bypass grafts, known as CABGs, and the number of procedures has remained fairly static over the six-year period.

At the same time the health service has seen a big increase in revascularisation through angioplasty or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

During a PCI procedure a catheter is used to expand the artery with a balloon and an expandable metal tube, known as a stent, is used to keep the widened artery open.

Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Mac Armstrong, said: "This is an excellent piece of work. Coronary revascularisation has been one of the great success stories of recent years.

"It is giving a new lease of life to thousands of people by quite literally getting their blood flowing again."