Peek inside city's £29m heart unit (From The Oxford Times)

Peek inside city's £29m heart unit

8:34pm Tuesday 1st September 2009 in Search By Amanda Williams

HIS is the groundbreaking £29m Oxford Heart Centre opening at the end of the month.

Yesterday the Oxford Mail was given a look inside the new centre, which has taken almost five years to plan and build, ahead of its official opening on September 29.

The five-storey building will house new facilities for cardiac patients, and experts at the hospital hope it will increase the speed at which heart attack and emergency patients are seen and treated.

More than 20,000 cardiac patients are treated at the John Radcliffe Hospital each year, including up to as 400 heart attack victims.

It is hoped the new centre, which will house more than 90 beds, will make it possible for an extra 2,000 patients to be seen each year – and create 200 extra jobs.

Consultant cardiologist Dr Colin Forfar said: “It’s newer, slightly bigger, but most importantly it’s carefully designed for ease of use and access.

“Patients who come in as an emergency after suffering an acute heart attack will be delivered directly to the centre, so we can meet them at the door and get them quickly into the laboratory for treatment.

“Time is of the essence in the treatment of heart attacks – and we hope to have patients receiving specific treatments, say for blocked arteries, within 20 to 30 minutes of arriving here.”

The centre has been funded by the Department of Health, with contributions from Oxford University, which will use the centre as a research base.

However fundraising for the Oxford Heart Centre is not over. The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Charitable Funds team is hoping to raise £2m to furnish the centre.

On October 2 a fundraising dinner will be held at Keble College, and, on October 18, hundreds of people are expected to take part in the It’s Not Just a Walk in the Park event – a double fundraising effort for the Oxford Cancer Centre and Oxford Heart Centre.

Graeme Garden, radio personality and former member of comedy trio The Goodies – who lives just outside Chipping Norton – was treated at the hospital for a heart rhythm problem in 2002, and has backed the fundraising drive.

He said: “Everything here will give patients first class care. But they also want to improve the experience of being here.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk For more information on fundraising events visit oxfordradcliffe.nhs.uk