Fast-track treatment cuts deaths by 80%

Britain's first 24-hour fast-track service for patients who have had a heart attack has has led to a five-fold reduction in deaths.

Patients at Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust usually have a procedure to unblock their arteries within an hour of their heart attack.

The trust said 162 patients had been treated with the fast-track angioplasty procedure over the year, with only four deaths - less than 2.5 per cent.

The standard treatment of giving drugs to dissolve blood clots has a mortality rate above 15 per cent.

The trust said: "Figures show that the primary angioplasty service is more successful than current clot-busting drug treatment, and halves the length of stay in hospital from an average of eight days to an average of four days."

Hammersmith, with the London Ambulance Service, was the first centre in Britain to set up a 24-hour angioplasty service. In October Tony Blair had treatment to correct an irregular heart beat at the Hammersmith Hospital.

Earlier this year Health Secretary John Reid announced a ?1million project to look into providing a 24-hour angioplasty service like that at Hammersmith. Heart attack patients undergo the procedure very soon after arriving at hospital, rather than waiting weeks after thrombolysis, treatment with clot-busting drugs.

Angioplasty involves inserting a catheter through an artery up to the heart where a balloon is inflated in the blockage to reopen the blood vessel.

Hammersmith estimated the initiative would save 30,000 bed days a year in west London and reduce costs.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director designate of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Such practice is a vanguard service which is setting a standard for others to follow. Conventional therapy is effective - these results simply show that primary angioplasty has the potential to add another significant string to the cardiologist's bow."