THE Royal Berkshire Hospital has been named as the fastest 24-hour response centre for cardiac arrests in England and Wales for the third year running, with 94.2 per cent of patients treated within two hours of calling an ambulance.

National figures from April 2013 to April 2014 have revealed that, on average, 58.9 per cent of heart attack sufferers receive treatment within this vital period. The second best performing centre achieved 82.4 per cent.

Cardiac consultant Dr William Orr, who has worked at the hospital for 13 years, has put the success down to changes in treatment and the rapid response from his ambulance service colleagues to 999 calls.

He said: “Things have changed a lot in the last 10 years. We have gone from block-busting drugs to angioplasty procedures that has allowed us to push forward and make things even better.

“We have seen a year-on-year improvement, while there have been a lot of centres that have fallen backwards in the last year. That might be for all sorts of reasons, like we have seen across the country, with pressures on departments with patients increases.

“We see about 200 life-threatened cardiac patients a year, and about 300 more that don’t need as immediate treatment.”