A HOSPITAL which will play a vital role in speeding up heart surgery in the region is battling to overcome recruitment problems.

Filling specialist medical and nursing vacancies is proving a major headache for the James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough.

The hospital's heart unit already carries out 1,100 bypasses a year and this is due to rise to 1,500 when an extension is open fully in October.

But despite its success in importing specialist Spanish nurses to work in the cardiac intensive care unit and hiring more consultants in a competitive jobs market, the hospital still needs more medical and nursing staff.

Dr Jim Hall, its head of cardiothoracic services, said vacancies for consultant anaesthetists were proving particularly hard to fill, but he expressed confidence that the enlarged unit would be open fully in five months.

"We are three-quarters of the way there in terms of recruitment of staff," he said.

Earlier this month, The Northern Echo revealed exclusively that two North-Eastern heart patients had undergone bypass surgery in Belgium.

The patients, 73-year-old Denis Waistell, of County Durham, and an unnamed man from Middlesbrough, were the first in the UK to benefit from a scheme brought in by Health Secretary and Darlington MP Alan Milburn to speed up treatment for patients who had waited for more than six months.

The Northern Echo's A Chance To Live campaign, which called for faster treatment for heart patients, played a part in changing national policy.

But there are fears that waiting lists at the James Cook could increase again unless new diagnostic facilities at Durham, Darlington and Hartlepool are opened on time during the next financial year.

The heart unit has also been affected by the decision to delay the transfer of specialist clinical services from Middlesbrough General Hospital and North Riding Infirmary to the revamped James Cook "super-hospital".

This came about because many medical staff with military connections were called up to work in Iraq during military action.

During this financial year, as well as the planned increase in bypass surgery, the number of angioplasty heart procedures is due to rise from 850 to 1500.

About 140 patients are waiting for heart bypass surgery at present, and all but six have been waiting less than six months.

Three months ago, about 300 heart patients were waiting at the James Cook. No more of its patients are due to have surgery abroad.

Read more about the Chance to Live campaign here.