HEART patients across Dorset are set to benefit from a new raft of measures to improve services and health levels.

NHS chiefs are stepping up their efforts to reduce cardiac problems by investing in expanded and improved services.

A new action plan aims to reduce smoking, promote healthy lifestyles, reduce waiting times and the distance heart patients must travel for treatment.

Plans to increase diagnostic tests and local services mean that Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester will receive a new catheter laboratory next year.

Medics will also urge heart patients to call for emergency services earlier if a suspected heart attack occurs.

Programmes to combat overweight and obesity will be developed, and staff at rapid-access chest pain clinics will continue to meet their two-week waiting time target.

Heart services will be working towards achieving the NHS Plan target of a maximum wait of three months for an outpatient appointment, and six months for an inpatient admission.

Patients facing a delay of more than six months for treatment will be able to reduce their wait by going to a different hospital, if they so choose.

The action plan was approved at a board meeting of the new Dorset and Somerset Health Authority.

A report by Dorset's director of public health Dr Nicky Pearson said 'significant' progress had been made in reaching targets for improving cardiac health.

The targets include reducing deaths from heart disease, stroke and related illnesses among people under 75 by at least two-fifths by 2010.

Dr Pearson said: "Heart disease is the nation's biggest killer.

"It causes thousands of preventable deaths every year, and costs the NHS many millions of pounds to treat and prevent."