LEEDS is as far as North-East heart patients are likely to have to travel, despite earlier predictions that people could be flown abroad.

Newspapers were rife with rumours this summer that British heart patients could soon be heading abroad, as part of the Government's drive to slash waiting times.

While a handful of patients in South-East England have had joint operations in France, people waiting for heart bypass surgery at the James Cook University Hospital (JCUH) are likely to go no further than West Yorkshire for the forseeable future.

Dr Jim Hall, head of cardiology at the Middlesbrough heart unit, said that an existing contract with the Bupa hospital in Washington had been extended to include the Bupa hospital in Leeds.

Dr Hall said this should provide the Middlesbrough unit with enough additional capacity in the private sector to meet the target laid down by the recently introduced Patient's Choice initiative.

Under the initiative, which was launched at JCUH by Health Secretary Alan Milburn, anyone waiting for longer than six months for a heart bypass can opt to have surgery at a private hospital, but paid for by the NHS.

The Middlesbrough heart unit is being expanded to increase capacity.

Dr Hall said he was "very pleased" at the way staff recruitment was going but revealed that the new unit would probably not be working at maximum capacity when it is handed over to the trust.

"I don't think we will fully open until the back end of the year," said Dr Hall.

Recruitment was always going to be difficult, but Dr Hall said progress was being made.

A fifth heart surgeon, Andy Owens, is due to join the team at JCUH in early November and Teesside trust will be advertising for a sixth surgeon shortly.

"A new anaesthetist, Adrian Mellor, started earlier this month," said Dr Hall.

"He was number six. We probably need another two," he said.

He said that recruiting Spanish nurses to work in the heart unit had been so successful that another recruitment drive was planned.

At present, no patient at the unit waits longer than 12 months for a bypass and the average wait is moving towards nine months.