PARAMEDICS and hospital staff in Greater Manchester have scooped a top award after saving lives by speeding up treatment for heart attack victims.

In the life-or-death battle against the clock for a patient gripped by a heart attack, ambulance and hospital staff have come up with new ways to save time and give patients a life-saving drug earlier.

The new techniques pioneered by staff at Greater Manchester Ambulance Service (GMAS) and Rochdale Infirmary have already dramatically boosted the chances of survival for heart attack patients, for the sooner they get the drug, the more of the heart that can be saved from permanent damage.

Now the team has become the first to win a new national award for its care and speedy treatment of heart attack victims.

By using special monitoring equipment in the ambulance to get the patient ready for treatment and calling ahead to alert Rochdale Infirmary's heart attack team, paramedics reckon they have speeded up both diagnosis and treatment of patients.

The government's target is for 75 per cent of patients to be given the life-saving drug thrombolysis within 60 minutes of a 999 call.

But hospital staff and paramedics have been working so hard that 95 per cent of heart attack victims are getting the clot-busting drug within an hour, saving countless lives.

GMAS Paramedic Helen Ayers says it has given patients a fighting chance of survival. "It has saved lives without a doubt because it is a battle against time for a cardiac patient," she said. "The sooner they get the drug, the less the heart dies."

Paramedics and cardiac specialists have also worked together to produce an education programme on chest pain and clotting drugs for nurses, paramedics and doctors, which has proved so successful it is being rolled out across Greater Manchester.

Chris Appleby, chief executive of Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, is delighted after his Rochdale staff won the Best Practice in Integrated Cardiac Care award, sponsored by the Ambulance Today, Hospital Medicine and Nursing Times magazines and the British Cardiac Patients' Association.

He said: "This is a superb achievement, and the teams fully deserve this award."

GMAS chief executive John Burnside said all ambulance crews would now put the new techniques into practice.

He said: "When ambulance crews and A&E departments work together in this way, it can only be of benefit to the patient and increase their chances of survival.

"The project has now been extended to cover the whole of Greater Manchester." Tweet