A life-saving spray is being deployed by paramedics in Sussex for the first time to help cool the brains of heart attack patients.

Ambulance bosses are working with the accident and emergency department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to see how well the pioneering treatment works.

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Trust is the first in the country to try out the system.

Cooling the brain following a heart attack is widely believed to improve a patient’s chances of survival and minimise long-term brain damage.

Critical care paramedics will spray an evaporating coolant liquid into the nasal cavity from the start of treatment until the patient arrives at hospital.

The spray and equipment, called the RhinoChill IntraNasal Cooling System, will continue to be used in A&E until the patient is transferred to intensive care.

The trust will use the spray on 25 patients for the evaluation, which is expected to take up to six months.

It will assess how easy it is to use the system inside an ambulance, the time it takes to reduce the patient’s brain temperature to between 32-24 degrees, the number of days the patient spends in intensive care, the percentage of patients surviving to be discharged from hospital and whether they have suffered any brain damage.

Andy Newton, trust consultant paramedic and director of clinical operations, said: “The results of this evaluation should be extremely useful for the trust and all ambulance services, as we strive to provide the very best care for our patients.”

Royal Sussex A&E consultant Rob Galloway said: “We will be particularly interested in the results of this evaluation from a hospital perspective.“