Ambulances are to be fitted with £300,000 worth of heart equipment, giving paramedics vital extra minutes to save lives.

Health minister Yvette Cooper today announced Sussex Ambulance Service will be given 30 defibrill-ators and monitoring machines.

The machines will help ambulance crews monitor critically-ill heart patients as they travel to hospital.

Ms Cooper also revealed Worthing and Southlands Hospitals and Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trusts would be given new equipment for their cardiac departments.

The on-board units mean heart attack patients can be diagnosed and given vital clot-busting drugs earlier either by paramedics or on arrival at accident and emergency.

The new hospital equipment will help staff diagnose the damage done to coronary arteries faster, meaning patients will get treatment more quickly.

About £26.5 million is being spent on life-saving equipment for 32 ambulance services and 21 hospitals in the UK.

It is part of a £110 million package first outlined by Health Secretary Alan Milburn in July. The money comes from the Lottery's New Opportunities Fund to help patients in areas with high rates of coronary heart disease.

Ms Cooper said: "Thousands of lives are lost every year because heart attack patients aren't treated quickly enough.

"This new equipment is a step towards achieving our ultimate aim of saving 200,000 lives by reducing deaths from heart disease and stroke by 40 per cent over the next eight years."

New Opportunities Fund chairman Baroness Jill Pitkeathley said: "Any delay in treating heart attack patients means lives can be lost each year and it is vital clot-

busting drugs are administered within 60 minutes of someone calling for professional help.

"There are variations in quality and access to some coronary heart disease services across the country. This funding will help ensure all patients have access to the right treatment at the right time."

Sussex Ambulance director of finance Steve Herring said: "It's excellent news and we will be distributing the new equipment as evenly as possible across the county.

"It means the money we would have had to spend on getting the new equipment can be used in other areas."

The new equipment is expected to be installed in the ambulances by July.