Over 50 patients brought back to life at Lincoln heart centre in 18 months

A total of 55 patients have effectively been brought back from the dead after suffering a heart attack thanks to a specialist service at Lincoln County Hospital.

The Lincolnshire Heart Centre team has spent the last 18 months attempting to improve survival rates for patients who suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA), one of the leading causes of death in the UK.

An OOHCA is where someone has a cardiac arrest in the community and has to be put on a ventilator before admission to hospital.

The service sees patients bypass their local hospital and admitted directly to the heart centre where their condition can be treated most effectively.

Hospital bosses have said that survival rates from OOCHA patients have risen from 5% to nearly 50% as part of the project.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust also said that the service redesign was undertaken within existing budgets and without additional investment.

Alun Roebuck, Consultant Nurse in Cardiology at Lincoln, said: “This collaborative project has been a fantastic success in helping us provide care for the sickest patients in Lincolnshire.

“Many of these patients have been dead for several minutes so getting to them quickly and treating their symptoms in the most appropriate place is key to their survival.

“Achieving survival rates for our patients that are better than the national average is a real accomplishment in such a rural area as Lincolnshire.”