IMPROVEMENTS that enable heart attack victims arriving at Maidstone Hospital to receive faster life-saving treatment have been praised by a health chief at a national conference on cardiac service.

David Fillingham, director of the NHS Modernisation Agency, applauded the "excellent work" by staff at the hospital in Hermitage Lane in front of 1,300 delegates at London Docklands Excel.

Since the Kent Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Collaborative was set up in September 2002, the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department has increased the number of heart attack victims being given life-saving drugs within the Government’s target time of 30 minutes from zero to eight out of 10.

Tim Waite, Kent's CHD Programme Manager, said: "It was a real honour for the CHD and staff at Maidstone A&E to see their efforts recognised at such a high level.

"Staff have worked extremely hard to improve door to needle times at the A&E Department, so much so that their techniques are now used as an example of good practice by the Department of Health's Modernisation Agency."

The Kent CHD Collaborative was set up to look at ways of improving the care patients receive for heart attacks, angina, heart failure, by-pass surgery and cardiac rehabilitation.