As Wessex Heartbeat heads into a new era after a decade of success, chief executive Alan Blair is looking ahead to how the charity will help save more lives...

ALAN Blair is not a man who likes to sit back and reflect on his achievements for too long. He knows Wessex Heartbeat has been a phenomenal success, but he also knows there are so many more things to do and so many lives to be saved in the future.

Heartbeat has already helped catapult Southampton's cardiac unit into a leading centre of excellence, but as the charity enters its second decade it looks set to be the most exciting time for medical staff and Alan's team.

Work has started on a major £42m NHS expansion of the Wessex Cardiac Unit, which will provide 50 per cent extra capacity for adult patients and up to 70 new beds, plus facilities including two extra operating theatres and a catheter laboratory.

The idea is purely to get more patients through the unit and to cut waiting lists for catheters and surgery, and Wessex Heartbeat will play a vital role in making sure the expansion - due for completion in 2005 - is in keeping with the unit's status at the forefront of cardiac care.

Alan says: "Within this project there are a number of areas where Heartbeat can get involved to add value to what the NHS will provide and to actually provide new facilities which the NHS will not provide.

"As far as the unit is concerned it's probably the most exciting time since Heartbeat was set up. There will be enormous requirements on Heartbeat to work shoulder to shoulder with the NHS to try and ensure we get the very best equipment that money can buy, so it's challenging from the point of view of the fundraising that's going to be needed."

With up to 70 new beds in the unit, Heartbeat is also planning an extension of Rotary Heartbeat House to cope with the extra demand from patients' relatives.

The charity is in the process of buying a property next door to the house which will be converted to provide seven extra bedrooms.

House manager Sue Chopping can't wait for the extension to be ready for guests.

She says: "I'm really looking forward to that. We hate having to turn people away because the house is full so this will be a real help.

"It's also going to be nice because it's all going to be single rooms and often guests don't like having to share."

Wessex Cardiac Unit clinical director Tony Salmon says: "The £42m capital development will involve doubling the number of patients passing through the unit and will therefore mean Heartbeat's role is going to be even more challenging.

"As the unit gets bigger and bigger its needs become more and more and therefore the demands on Heartbeat will get more and more. The new development will mean there's far too many people for Rotary Heartbeat House to cope with, so the extension is vital."

Other future projects for Heartbeat include upgrading the adult ward to bring it up to the standard of Ocean Ward, and creating a new ward specifically for young adults aged about 16 to 30.

Dr Salmon explains: "We are looking to Heartbeat to help us establish an adolescent unit to recognise the individual needs of a group of patients between children and adults and to have specific facilities for them to get them through their hospital stay.

"It's an emerging speciality because we've got very successful child heart surgery today. As a result, people are surviving who may not previously have lived and they're growing up into active adults who require ongoing supervision and treatment. With this new ward we will have a complete facility that copes with newborn to old age."

Heartbeat's most immediate project is to join forces with the NHS to buy a paediatric intensive care ambulance at a cost of about £140,000.

The NHS is putting in £90,000 and Heartbeat - thanks largely to some corporate donations from Barclays Corporate Banking and Hewlett Packard - is making up the rest.

Alan explains: "When a baby is born and needs urgent treatment, the paediatric intensive care team has to go wherever the baby is to safely bring it back. At the moment, if it's not a helicopter job, the baby has to travel by ordinary ambulance which is not equipped as well as it could be, and may not even be available because the ambulance service is over-stretched.

"Now the paediatric intensive

care unit will have its own specially-equipped intensive care ambulance. The ambulance will meet the

helicopter wherever it touches down and will bring babies back in cases where a helicopter isn't required.

"It's going to revolutionise the way they can actually bring back babies."

Dr Salmon says: "The list of projects Heartbeat can help us with is literally endless.

"Wessex Heartbeat started small, but in the last ten years it's become an integral part of the unit. Heartbeat is so important to help us keep at the forefront of developments, both clinically and academically, that now I cannot see us working without it.

"The Heartbeat team works with us as colleagues in the department, so they're working alongside the doctors and nurses with a common goal of promoting healthcare and developments.

"It's an excellent example of the NHS and charity working side by side in a true partnership."

Alan adds: "We will continue to play a very full part in raising the standards of the unit in terms of equipment and facilities.

"We don't see this as the end of the first ten years - we see this as the start of the next ten years."

READ TODAY'S SPECIAL EDITION OF THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WESSEX HEARTBEAT AND WHAT IT HAS ACHIEVED OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS.