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NHS referrals fall thanks to new handheld device

15/04/2008

NHS referral costs have fallen in Greater Manchester thanks to a pilot initiative that allows GPs to check the heart rhythms in patients.

Patients complaining of chest pains, which are often nothing serious, are usually referred to their local hospital for a diagnosis with an electrocardiograph (ECG).

But now the availability of hand-held ECG monitors in surgeries has cut the need for hospital referrals and follow-up GP appointment by 60 per cent.

GPs hold the device next to a live phone line and cardiac nurses at the other end interpret the readings and advise whether treatment is necessary.

The service is currently being used in 150 surgeries in ten Greater Manchester primary care trusts.

Karen Gibbons, service improvement manager for Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cardiac and Stroke Network, said patients can "turn up at the GP and get an instant answer".

"The service has great potential and has demonstrated that if used on a national level it could generate huge savings for the NHS every year," she added.

In 2006, a cardiac technician at Fairfield Hospital in north Manchester mistakenly told a large number of patients that they were suffering from heart complaints. Their readings were, in fact, normal.