HEART disease is this country's biggest killer.

Every year, 110,000 people die from coronary heart disease in England, and 275,000 - more than twice the number of people living in a town the size of York - have a heart attack every year.

That's why I'm delighted to be able to inform readers of the Evening Press that the NHS is making excellent progress in tackling coronary heart disease.

People are getting treatment faster, they are getting access to more advanced treatment and, as a result, more are surviving.

At the end of 2002, 73 people in the area covered by North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority were waiting more than nine months for heart surgery.

Today, no one is waiting that long. By the end of this year, no one will be waiting more than six months, and by March 2005, if not before, no one will wait more than three months.

From April 2005, for the first time, patients will be given the choice of where they have surgery as soon as they are told that they need an operation instead of having to wait six months for that option as they do now.

This success is not solely the result of faster treatment, it is down to improved prevention, too.

Figures published last month show that since April last year, 2,645 people in North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic Health Authority area had quit smoking (for at least four weeks) with the help of local NHS Stop Smoking Services.

I should like to pay tribute to NHS staff in York and the surrounding area who have helped make this success possible.

John Reid,

Secretary of State for Health.

Updated: 10:08 Friday, March 26, 2004