EIGHT thousand lives might be saved every year if heart disease death rates in our region could be reduced to the level of the English health authority with the lowest rate.

That is the shocking conclusion of a report which says the amount of specialised heart treatment provided in the Northern and Yorkshire region does not match the high levels of demand.

The report - Working Together on Coronary Heart Disease in the Northern and Yorkshire Region - is one of the first produced by the recently established regional Public Health Observatory, based on the Stockton campus of Durham University.

Heart disease kills more than 14,000 people in the region every year, with more than 6,000 aged under-75.

Although heart disease rates are slowly declining and treatment has improved, the scale of the problem confronting doctors in the Northern and Yorkshire areas remains huge.

The number of deaths from heart disease in the North is 50 per cent higher than the South-East. Among men under 65, the death rate per 100,000 is 67.58, a figure beaten only by the North-West region on 74.34, compared with 47.33 in the South-East.

It's the same story among women under 65. Once again the Northern and Yorkshire region is the second highest in England on 19.74 deaths per 100,000 while the South-East is the best on 11.04.

Experts say that if the region's record could be reduced to the same level as the South-East, more than 8,000 people would be saved every year.

The report adds: "The greatest benefits will arise if new and existing partnerships can be utilised between the NHS and other organisations, particularly those concerned with local and regional government."

Author Dr Mike Robinson said non-NHS bodies could help plug the gaps in existing heart disease data. Supermarkets could play a role in monitoring eating habits, while local authorities could play their part by analysing who uses leisure facilities such as swimming pools.

The report's publication coincided with yesterday's announcement by Health Secretary Alan Milburn that the Government is to pay NHS hospitals £100m to carry out thousands of extra heart operations.

Hospitals which have the capacity are to be invited to bid to undertake at least 4,000 additional heart operations paid for through a new fund.

The Government has pledged that all patients who have been waiting for more than six months for heart surgery should be offered the choice of treatment elsewhere, including in private or foreign hospitals.

The Northern Echo launched its Chance to Live Campaign following the death of Darlington newspaper photographer Ian Weir who died while waiting for a heart bypass operation.