PATIENTS are being told by doctors at a busy hospital in Teesside to get on their bike - for their own good.

A £35,000 exercise bike presented to the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, yesterday, assesses a patient's suitability for complex surgery by testing fitness and stamina.

Dr Gerry Danjoux, a consultant in anaesthesia and pre-operative assessment, will lead a pilot study with the bike, putting patients to the test.

He said: "It's a bike with a metabolic cart attached to it - the kind used by Olympic athletes.

"The patient gets on, puts on a mouthpiece and goes through a gradual exercise programme, including a warm-up.

"The exercise is not designed to make them feel exhausted.

"It's really the equivalent to climbing up and down the stairs a couple of times.

"During the test, the mouthpiece relays information about the body's exercise capacity by measuring the amount of oxygen the body is consuming and the amount of carbon dioxide it produces.'

"The patient reaches a point during the exercise where the body starts to work anaerobically.

"The anaerobic threshold is used as an accurate predictor to assess their fitness for major surgery.

"The whole test takes about 20 minutes."

He said the bike will help medical teams to target critical care services to help high-risk surgical patients in need of intensive or high-dependency care.

"A similar machine has already been used in research trials and patients have found the bike better than treadmills as they're more in control,'' Dr Danjoux said.

The bike was presented to the hospital by the volunteers at the hospital.