HEALTH bosses have agreed to invest an extra £5.7m on improving treatment for heart patients in the region.

It will mean an extra 61 heart operations and an extra 88 angioplasties (unblocking cardiac arteries) will be carried out at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle in this financial year.

The cash is part of an extra £10m allocated to Northumberland and Tyne and Wear Health Authority by the Government, to help reduce waiting times.

NHS officials in the North-East are predicting that the cash will mean the average wait by a heart patient for a bypass operation at the Freeman will be cut to nine months.

The £5.7m cardiac cash released by the Department of Health is part of the £100m Coronary Heart Disease Patient's Choice Initiative announced by Health Secretary Alan Milburn earlier this year.

Bev Bookless, director of the Northern Network of Cardiac Care, said: "This is very good news. The extra money will allow us to increase the number of procedures carried out at the Freeman and strengthen diagnostic and rehabilitation services."

The cash will also allow Sunderland Royal Hospital to open up a new catheter laboratory where heart patients can have their arteries checked.

Extra cash invested in the region means that heart teams at the Freeman should soon be carrying out 1,180 bypasses annually, compared to the current figure of about 900, and more than 1,000 angioplasties.

So far, no patient in the area has taken advantage of the scheme's pledge to provide treatment at another centre, which has spare capacity.

The cash will also cover the costs of bringing over German orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ulrich Boenisch to South Tyneside District Hospital to treat about 240 patients who have been waiting longer than six months.