A hospital which is set to 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 James Cook University Hospital.

But despite the problems, officials are still confident the unit will be able to treat all heart patients when it opens in October, without the need to send patients abroad.

This week it was exclusively revealed that two North-Eastern heart patients had undergone bypass surgery in Belgium.

The patients, 73 year old Denis Waistell from County Durham and an unnamed man from Middlesbrough, were the first in the UK to benefit from a scheme brought in by Health Secretary Alan Milburn to speed up treatment for patients waiting 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.

Dr Jim Hall, head of cardiothoracic services at James Cook said vacancies for consultant anaesthetists were proving particularly hard to fill but expressed confidence that the enlarged unit should be fully opened in five months time.

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

Despite the successful importation of specially trained heart nurses from Spain there are still nursing vacancies in intensive care at the Middlesbrough heart unit.

There is also a warning that waiting lists at James Cook will actually begin to 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" because many medical staff with military connections were called up and sent to Iraq.

During the current financial year the unit is due to increase its capacity for bypass surgery from 1,100 to 1,500.

The number of angioplasty heart procedures should also increase from 850 to 1500 during the same period.

Currently around 140 patients are waiting for heart bypass surgery. All but six have been waiting for less than six months. Only three months ago around 300 heart patients were waiting at James Cook.

No other James Cook patients are due to have surgery abroad.