FRIMLEY Park Hospital officially opened its new Cardiac Catheter Laboratory last Friday. Roger Boyle, the national director for Heart Disease and Stroke, unveiled the new facility. "This facility will help local people get their treatment more quickly." he said. Richard Haynes was among the first to be treated in the new laboratory. He said: "If I had to go to St George's in London, I might not have been here." Mr Haynes suffered a heart attack and an anagram showed that one vessel was down to just 10 per cent flow through. The new laboratory started to treat patients in August last year and since then has looked after 400 people. The first patient was Bernard Bloxham from North Camp who came in with chest pains. He was given a cardiac catheterisation to produce a heart angiogram, a moving X-ray image of the blood vessels in and around the heart, which showed where the problem was so the staff knew how to treat him. "It was so new they had to unwrap the equipment and their lab shoes," said Mr Bloxham "There was no pain, the team was brilliant and explained to me what was happening." The laboratory is currently running three days a week and treats six to eight patients a day. Staff hope to treat thousands of people a year. "The new facility will help to reduce waiting times and benefit Frimley Park hospital and St George's." said Frimley Park consultant cardiologist Dr Peter Clarkson. "The people will be treated locally and have less or no transfers once the lab is fully operational." Next month the team will start to fit pace makers and the range of treatments available at the laboratory will increase during the year. Frimley Park consultant cardologist Dr Malcom Boyd said: "This is a key development in taking forward cardiac diagnostics and treatment. "The lab has been used for the last six months and is working well with the first-rate nursing and technical staff." The new laboratory has required eight new staff to run it, including a cardiological technician, specialist radiographer and a team of nurses. "This is a wonderful new facility, which will make things much easier for our patients.' said radiology services manager, Philip Ramsey. "The day patient ward for the lab is right next to the laboratory itself so there is no need to transport people around the hospital." The entire new block cost £4 million. The lab cost £2 million and half of that was the equipment. The money for the equipment was given by the National Lottery New Opportunity Fund.