More than a life a day has been saved at Mayday Hospital since surgeons started using a new coronary heart disease procedure.

Cardiac angioplasty helps prevent heart attacks by widening arteries that have been narrowed by a build-up of fatty materials. It was first offered at Mayday last April and 380 people have gone under the knife.

Before then patients in urgent need of the procedure had to wait to visit other south London hospitals.

Mayday's lead consultant cardiologist Dr Peter Stubbs said: "Until we introduced this service, Croydon people who needed an angioplasty faced an anxious wait before being transferred to a different hospital with the right facilities.

"Now they can have the procedure at Mayday and can go home one or two days later."

The operation involves a small inflatable balloon being guided to the blocked section of the coronary artery where it is gently inflated, squashing the fatty tissue and widening the blood vessel. A short tube of stainless-steel mesh then expands and remains in place after the balloon is removed, holding the artery open.

About 700 people a year who are admitted to Mayday with heart disease have a diagnostic angiogram, a procedure that allows doctors using x-ray imaging to visualise the patient's coronary arteries. Almost half of these are found to need a cardiac angioplasty, along with a further 250 who are scanned in non-urgent situations.

- Have you had cardiac angioplasty at Mayday? If so, let us know by sending an email to newsdesk@croydonguardian.co.uk.