Primary percutaneous coronary intervention for acute ST elevation myocardial infarction – first year's experience of a tertiary referral centre in the UK

This study evaluated the first year's experience of a large interventional centre in the UK after a primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) programme that runs 24 hours a day and seven days a week was started. Workload, patient outcome, length of stay, and effect on the remainder of the interventional service were analysed. The primary PCI service for a mainly urban population of 800,000 was started in April 2005. All relevant characteristics, details of procedures, outcome, and other data on quality of care were collected and entered prospectively onto a computerised database. Data were analysed with SPSS (version 13.0). Over a 12-month period, 305 patients were diagnosed with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), of whom 259 (85%) were accepted for primary PCI. Median door-to-balloon time was 98 minutes, which decreased from 106 minutes in the first six months to 93 minutes in the second six months (p