FAST-track treatment being piloted by heart specialists in East London has been recognised with a nation award.The Heart Attack centre at the London Chest Hospital has received the Health Service Journal award for acute and primary care’ innovation for its use of balloon angioplasty which unblocks arteries within 90 minutes of a heart attack
FAST-track treatment being piloted by heart specialists in East London has been recognised with a nation award.
The Heart Attack centre at the London Chest Hospital has received the Health Service Journal award for acute and primary care’ innovation for its pioneering use of balloon angioplasty which unblocks arteries within 90 minutes of a heart attack.
Staff at the centre in Bethnal Green have devised treatment which has cut death-rates from heart attacks by half.
They have been working on the pilot scheme over the past three years with the London Ambulance Service and North East London Cardiac & Stroke network.
Prof Martin Rothman, lead interventional cardiologist at the centre, said: “The most ambitious goal for us was to make this treatment available 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week.
“That means someone having a heart attack is now assured of potentially life-saving treatment quickly.”
Death rates from heart attacks have fallen by an incredible 50 per cent in the centre’s catchment’ area of East London and North London, with a population of two million.
Nearly half the patients brought in are discharged from the hospital within 48 hours, compared to the national average of six days.
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