EXPERTS at a world-famous North-East heart unit have called for a big increase in the number of artificial heart pumps on the NHS.

Heart specialists at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle say the Department of Health must make greater use of mechanical heart pumps because of a steep drop in the number of heart transplants.

Nationally the UK has seen a 46 per cent reduction in heart transplantation rates over the past 10 years.

At the Freeman Hospital only 16 heart transplants were carried out in the last financial year compared with 1995-96 when surgeons carried out 49.

Because of the growing shortages of available donated hearts specialists at the Freeman have probably implanted more HeartWare mechanical heart pumps than anywhere else in the UK.

Fitting comfortably into the palm of a hand, the HeartWare pump uses an electrically-powered centrifugal pump to send blood from the left side of the heart into the aorta, the large vessel that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

A cable from the pump comes out of the patient's skin and connects to a controller powered by a battery pack.

Since they implanted the first HeartWare pump in January 2009 staff at the Freeman have put more than 50 of the devices into patients.

Costing £66,000 per pump - plus all the associated costs of transplantation - they allow patients to return to a more normal life.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, consultant cardiologist Dr Ray MacGowan and colleagues, say one of the consequences of the decline in available hearts is the need for more mechanical heart pumps as an alternative treatment for advanced heart failure.

These devices can be used to support a patient until a heart becomes available or as what Dr MacGowan calls "destination therapy", where the patient is not considered a suitable candidate for transplantation and receives long term support with the device.

Dr MacGowan told The Northern Echo: "These devices are keeping people alive, there is no doubt about it. We have patients who are back at home, back at work and even doing their A-levels. Our longest surviving patient has been on one for more than two years.

"In the future they will end up by replacing heart transplants," he added.

Even it could theoretically jeopardise the future of heart surgery at the Freeman, Dr MacGowan also argued that it is time to consider reducing the number of heart transplant units in the UK because it is increasingly difficult for surgeons to maintain their expertise.

Michael Fenwick, 55, from East Stanley, County Durham, is just one of the more than 50 North-East heart patients who are being kept alive by a HeartWare pump while waiting for a transplant.

"They put it in on October 10th last year and it has been fantastic," said Mr Fenwick.

"I can go anywhere with it. I normally plug it into the mains but when I go out I can operate it on batteries," said Mr Fenwick, who was diagnosed with advanced heart failure last year.