A NATIONAL programme for improving care for patients with heart disease appears to be improving the lot of patients in Swindon.

The National Service Frame-work for Coronary Heart Disease was introduced three years ago to combat heart disease through a three pronged approach: prevention, prescription and treatment.

And since it was introduced, waiting lists for heart disease patients have fallen and many more patients have access to cholesterol busting drugs.

The news has been welcomed by North Swindon MP Michael Wills, who said: "The framework introduced a major programme on smoking, helping around 11,200 people in our health authority area give up smoking.

"Also in our area, in the year ending March 2002 around 43,000 local people were prescribed drugs to reduce the levels of cholesterol in the blood, potentially saving around 196 lives and preventing many more people from having heart attacks.

"And by December last year, only four patients were waiting more than nine months for heart surgery in the area.

"The Great Western Hospital has also received extra cardiac catheters, laboratory facilities, and highly specialised X-ray machines designed to take moving pictures of the beating heart for the diagnosis and treatment of heart conditions.

"The framework is a ten year blueprint for modernising heart disease services, but these figures show that the expertise and hard work of NHS staff is already delivering improvements locally."