A NEW unit at Southampton General Hospital has helped slash waiting lists for many heart patients from weeks to days.

The cardiac regional transfer unit has already treated more than 150 patients from across the south since it opened two months ago.

As the only specialist cardiac centre in the south, heart patients are referred to Southampton from seven different areas, from Dorchester in the west to Chichester in the east.

Its success depends partly on six beds in the Wessex Cardiac Unit being set aside for transfers and partly on a new referral system that allows doctors in Southampton to judge quickly which patients will really benefit from being admitted.

Hampshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has also worked closely with the hospital to develop a daily patient transfer service.

The unit aims to take in 20 patients a week for detailed diagnostic tests and, where appropriate, treatment.

Its launch in September came just three months after department heads came up with the idea.

Now hospital bosses are hoping some of the principles can be used to help reduce waiting lists in other departments within the hospital.

The project has been spearheaded by Robbie Burns, clinical services manager in the cardiac unit, and consultant cardiologist Dr Nick Curzen.

Mr Burns said: "Before the unit opened, we regularly had between 60 and 70 patients waiting many weeks to be admitted.

"Now they have a maximum wait of one week, and 50 per cent are able to go home the following day.

"We are hoping the technique and pro-forma can be used in other departments to the same effect; they are already being used elsewhere internally at the hospital."

The new system allows patients to get much quicker treatment, as well as helping other hospitals to free up more beds.

Although setting up the unit cost Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust £50,000, reducing wasted bed days in local district hospitals will save the NHS about 30 times that amount.