THE announcement today of a £110million government cash injection to fight heart disease is sure of an extra welcome in East Lancashire where it is the No.1 killer.
And the disclosure that health services in our region are in line for a special slice of the money -- as high-need areas will get great allocations -- is doubly encouraging.
Nor can there be any dispute over this preference -- when in East Lancashire a third more people die from heart disease than in the country as a whole and when it is one of the four worst areas for heart disease in the North West which itself is the worst region in the country.
But if the causes lie largely in poor social and economic conditions and harmful lifestyle values -- smoking, drinking, unhealthy diet and lack of exercise -- the government is also right to plough extra resources in dealing with the dreadful effects.
For coupled with its targets of cutting deaths from heart disease and stroke by 40 per cent by the end of the decade, there comes the admission that areas like ours with the worst record on heart disease have not always had the best health services to deal with it.
Progress has been made with the setting up last year of two special 'fast track' chest-pain clinics at Blackburn and Burnley hospitals -- designed to slash from 14 weeks to two weeks the wait patients had to see a consultant and learn whether heart disease was the cause of their pain.
But it is at the next stage that more progress and targeting of resources is needed -- for when heart disease is confirmed, East Lancashire patients can, as was revealed only months ago, spend more than a year waiting for vital tests and as long again in the queue for vital surgery.
True, government targets are for waiting times for cardiac surgery to be cut to six months by 2005 and to three months by 2008. But it is at the much more rapid reduction of these dangerous delays that this new and welcome money should be aimed -- particularly for victims in heart-disease black spots like ours.
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