THE crusade against heart disease moved up a gear last night as the Government announced a £300m programme to slash waiting times for heart operations ahead of schedule.

As The Northern Echo exclusively revealed earlier this month, thousands of extra patients have had bypass operations since the heart disease action plan was launched two years ago.

So many extra patients have been treated that the Health Secretary Alan Milburn is bringing forward his plans to cut maximum waiting times from 15 to 12 months from next March - a year earlier than planned.

His blueprint for heart disease - which claims the lives of 150,000 Britons every year - was drawn up as a direct result of The Northern Echo's A Chance to Live campaign to improve services for heart patients.

It called for UK heart bypass waiting times to be brought down from more than 18 months to three months - in line with Holland.

Mr Milburn agreed and his ultimate target is a maximum three-month wait.

The Northern Echo launched its campaign after the death of Darlington photographer Ian Weir, 38, who died waiting for a bypass operation.

The programme announced yesterday aims to provide more NHS heart operations in both NHS and private hospitals, speed up diagnosis and improve treatment and rehabilitation services for patients with coronary heart disease.

Expansion schemes at the North-East's two heart units, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, are already under way. But yesterday's announcement will mean diagnostic angiography facilities, currently housed in a trailer at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, will be transferred to a purpose-built centre.

Elsewhere, millions of pounds of Lottery funds will be used to install angiography equipment at Darlington Memorial Hospital, University Hospital of North Durham, Sunderland Royal Hospital, North Tyneside General Hospital and York District Hospital to speed up treatment.

Speaking exclusively to The Northern Echo, Mr Milburn praised the way in which NHS staff had responded to his rallying call. "We were going to do an extra 6,000 heart operations by 2003 but by April of this year we had already done 4,800 more so we are going to hit the target a year early," said the Darlington MP.

"That is thanks to the absolute dedication of the brilliant people who are doing this work. They are really pulling out all the stops.

"If we can go further and faster then clearly we should."

The allocation will allow heart centres in Leeds, Blackpool, Liverpool, Manchester, Southampton, Sheffield, Leeds and Plymouth to be expanded, and an extra 1,800 heart operations to be performed by next March.

And £35m is to be spent on improved rehabilitation, patients with heart failure and primary care services.

Dr Jim Hall, spokesman for the James Cook University Hospital heart unit, said: "The expansion of the infrastructure for heart patients, including the investment in primary care, is absolutely crucial and very welcome."

Latest figures show 43 patients were waiting more than 12 months for a bypass in the Northern and Yorkshire region at the end of September, compared with 189 at the same time last year, including two from County Durham, two from Teesside and three from North Yorkshire.

Heart patient Edna Irwin, from Darlington, who says she has been waiting for a bypass for nearly two years, was unimpressed by Mr Milburn's announcement. "He is always telling us how marvellously we are doing and it doesn't look that way to me," she said.