COMMUNITY medics who have helped reduce heart disease deaths in the Durham dales have been voted best in the country.

The lifesaving Coronary Heart Disease Prevention Team from the Durham Dales Primary Care Trust won two nationally recognised awards under a scheme rewarding top quality health initiatives.

Out of 120 applications from across the country, the trust's CHD programme was recognised for the best overall team performance and for the best implementation of a National Service Framework in the Primary Care Report Best Practice Awards.

It was the first primary trust in County Durham and Darlington to employ specialist heart nurses working in CHD clinics in each of 12 GP practices. In addition there is now a heart failure nurse.

All GP practices now have clinics to help people stop smoking and are supplied with defibrillators.

Heart nurse Caroline Levie said: "The number of people that die prematurely from heart disease in the Durham Dales is higher that the national average.

"We have been working hard over the past few years with GPs, practice nurses and local hospitals to try to reduce this."

Dr Stewart Findlay, chairman of the trust's professional executive committee, said: "We are delighted that the hard work carried out by our CHD nurses, GPs and practice nurses over the past few years has been recognised."