A SOUTHAMPTON charity has appointed a former leading cardiac surgeon as new chairman of trustees and set a £1m fundraising target.

James Monro, who retired in 2004, is the new man at the helm of Wessex Heartbeat, which supports the Wessex Cardiac Centre.

He spent 31 years at the centre and becomes only the fourth chairman since Wessex Heartbeat was launched in 1992.

Wessex Heartbeat has raised more than £11m to provide additional equipment, research grants and create new facilities including the Rotary Heartbeat House which provides a home from home for relatives and the recently opened Heartbeat Education Centre that provides communication and training facilities to enhance cardiac care not just in the region, but across the UK and worldwide Mr Monro said: "The need to provide funding for projects that will continue to enhance the Wessex Cardiac Centre for the benefit of patients and their families will remain our priority while working closely with the NHS to revisit the goals that will enable the facility to continue as an internationally recognised centre of excellence."

Over the next 12 months fundraisers need to raise £1m for two major projects.

The first reflects the medical advances within paediatric cardiology and surgery. Over the past 20 years the number of children with complex congenital heart disease surviving into adulthood has risen sharply.

It is now recognised that about 85 per cent of children undergoing cardiac surgery will survive to the age of 16 and deaths from congenital heart conditions now occur in adulthood rather than childhood.

This means that there are an increasing number of teenage and young adult patients returning to the centre for routine follow up examinations and medical intervention.

Following the charity's success with the upgrading of the much admired Ocean children's ward, Wessex Heartbeat is now fundraising to create a special section of Ward E2 that will be dedicated to young patients and their families.

The second is a project to provide £376,500 equipment to support the expansion of the cardiac operating theatres within the centre, with a special focus on specialist equipment required to provide life saving operations on babies and young children.