Health bosses have made an upbeat assessment of the war on heart disease in the region.

Northumberland, Tyne & Wear Strategic Health Authority says "real progress" is being made in reducing deaths and illness.

Members of the authority meeting in Newcastle have been told that death rates are on a downward spiral and the gap between heart health in the North-East and the rest of the country is narrowing.

In the report Bev Bookless, director of Northern Cardiac Care Network, says: "Real progress has been made in lowering coronary heart disease mortality locally and in narrowing the gap with the with rest of the country."

For younger age groups in the area the risk of death from CHD has almost halved in just over a decade, she said.

In 1990 CHD deaths within the authority boundaries stood at 4,991. By 2000 the figure had dropped to 3,396.

Among under-65s this fall is even more marked with 928 deaths in 1990 and 497 in 2000. Extra cash from a recent initiative designed to expand patient choice had not resulted in any North-East patients opting to be treated outside of the region but had allowed "significant investment" in Newcastle heart units.

This extra cash funded three additional intensive care beds and paid for extra operations.

Most heart patients were now treated within the first three months of going on the waiting list and there had been a 50 per cent reduction in the numbers of patients waiting more than six months for heart bypass surgery, the report added.

At the same time there had been an increase in the number of patients prescribed drugs which stabilise heart conditions.

New catheter labs, speeding up the diagnosis of heart disease, are due to be opened at Sunderland and Ashington by March.