A CAMPAIGN to cut the number of sudden deaths among young people will get high-profile exposure next week.

North-East MP Dari Taylor will outline her proposals to improve detection and treatment of rare heart conditions to the House of Commons.

She is being given the chance to put forward her proposals after winning a Private Members Ballot, which allows a handful of MPs a year to introduce ideas for new legislation.

The Stockton South MP, who set up a cross-party parliamentary group to examine the mystery deaths, will have the first reading of her bill on Tuesday (January 6).

Mrs Taylor's bid comes after the death of a family friend, Levon Morland, from County Durham, at the age of 22. Levon, who was diagnosed with the rare Wolfe Parkinson White syndrome when he was 12, was found dead in his bed by his mother Sandra in January 2002.

His family were aware of the condition but had not been told it could prove fatal or that it could be cured or treated with medication. There are up to eight cardiac-related deaths recorded among the young in the UK every week, but experts estimate there are many more which are not classed the same way.

Mrs Taylor said: "These conditions which involve rapid heart beat are often diagnosed, but the young people are told it is a nuisance - no more than that - and they can get on with their lives.

"The problem is they don't get on with their lives at all - they die.

"We want medics to take this problem seriously and actually acknowledge it can be fatal and we want to train surgeons and GPs on cardiac arrest in the young.

"If these people were 40, they would instantly do a heart scan, but because these people are aged between 12 and 25 they say it's not a problem.

"These conditions are detectable and they are treatable and quite frankly we should be doing something about it." Mrs Taylor's bid has the backing of Levon's family in West Rainton, near Durham City, their MP Kevan Jones, and heart specialist Dr Greg Whyte, an exercise cardiologist at Norfolk Park Hospital in Harrow.

Dr Whyte said: "A lot of deaths have been put down to asthma or epilepsy but they could well have been cardio-vascular and we need to be pairing together very accurate statistics to examine the problem more closely."