UP TO 150 North Yorkshire patients a year could benefit from a new scheme to fast-track specialist treatment for serious heart attacks to Leeds -and spare victims from having to undergo a double journey.
Until now all people experiencing cardiac symptoms have been taken to their local hospital first to be assessed. Then if they need a specialist procedure to clear the blockage they are put back in the ambulance to go to Leeds General Infirmary.
Now North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) bosses want to speed up the process and get many patients the help they need faster by giving ambulance service paramedics the call on where they think the patient should go.
If the paramedic realises that the patient needs the specialist treatment to clear the blockage, called angioplasty – which can only be performed at the LGI – the patient can be sent straight there.
The PCT’s director of commissioning and service development Jane Marshall said: “This new service could potentially benefit up to 150 people from York and Harrogate each year as heart attack patients now have much quicker access to angioplasty procedures.
“This new fast-track service will ultimately give patients the best possible chance of a full recovery.”
At present the changes are limited to York and Harrogate areas because one of the criteria is the patient should arrive at the LGI within two hours of the paramedics attending.
If it takes longer to stabilise the patient at home, being put straight on an ambulance to go for surgery is probably not the kindest way to treat them. So they will go to their local hospitals and be transferred to the LGI when they are well enough.
The PCT says it has been working closely with the ambulance paramedics to deliver the new service, which has already started in York and Harrogate areas and may be rolled out to more remote parts of North Yorkshire once officials have seen how it is working.
It is limited to heart attacks classed as a STEMI (ST elevated myocardial infarction): the most severe type of heart attack caused by complete blockage of a coronary artery, causing irreversible damage in minutes. A less severe heart attack is known as a Non- STEMI.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service medical director Dr Alison Walker said: “If a paramedic identifies a patient as having had a STEMI, the sooner the primary angioplasty is carried out, the less damage there will be to the heart and the quicker the patient is likely to recover.
“YAS is pleased to be involved in this service and there has been excellent co-operation between the ambulance service, North Yorkshire and York PCT and Leeds General Infirmary providing this service 24 hours a day.”
A trust spokesman made clear there was no intention of the service taking anything away from local hospitals, adding: “If they need an angioplasty the only place it can happen and best place for them is the LGI and they would be transferred there anyway.
“If someone presented with severe chest pains under the old system the paramedic would take them to local hospital to be stabilised and assessed. They would then be transferred to the LGI, and so incur two journeys.
“Now if the paramedics arrive and diagonise the patient is having a particular type of attack which requires this procedure and can guarantee they can get that person to the LGI in two hours they will take them there.
“The LGI will liaise with the local hospital about transferring the patient back to their local hospital for rehab. It is just trying to speed things up for patients to get them the procedure faster.”
(c) 2008 Yorkshire Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
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