Heart attack victims are to be offered exercise, lifestyle help and counselling to cut heart deaths.

Four specialist cardiac rehabilitation nurses have been appointed to work throughout the district making sure most heart attack patients have access to exercise programmes, advice on how to stop smoking and psychological help.

One nurse will be based in each of the district's four Primary Care Trust areas: Bradford City, Bradford South and West, Bradford North and Airedale.

They will be joined by a full-time psychologist and an assistant who will help people who have had heart attacks to come to terms with the illness and stay healthier.

About 800 people a year in the district suffer heart attacks and over 8,000 had to go into hospital in the last year with coronary heart disease.

The £500,000-a-year project, which is largely community-based, builds on work already done by cardiac rehabilitation nurses at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Airedale General Hospital.

Scheme co-ordinator, Liz Allen, of Bradford Health Authority, said the nurses had only just been appointed and the project was developing, but they would start to see patients early next year. The aim was to offer rehabilitation to more than 85 per cent of heart patients.

Dr Martin Taylor, coronary heart disease lead for Bradford City Primary Care Trust, said: "When patients are discharged from hospital after a heart attack or major heart surgery the nurse will visit the patient at home and plan with them a person-specific rehabilitation package.

"Less than 25 per cent are undergoing rehabilitation after heart attacks and the value of rehabilitation has been shown, in clinical studies, to reduce death and disability after heart attack substantially."

He added: "The challenge will be to find patient-centred ways of working for the ones who do not currently access rehabilitation - women, the elderly, ethnic minorities - which make it acceptable.

"Some, because of their illness, aren't fit to go to a gym but would benefit from advice and help with all lifestyle issues."

Laura Hibbs, lead nurse for Bradford North Primary Care Trust, said heart attacks affected the health not only of the patient but also of their family: "This will give them the confidence to live their life in the healthiest way and gives confidence for their families."