For any patient, coming into an accident and emergency department with a suspected heart attack is a frightening and disorientating experience.

The patient and their relatives will expect immediate and efficient treatment and care during their time at the hospital, from their arrival in A&E through to their care when they get home.

Sarah Young is one of only a handful of consultant nurses for cardiology in England, whose job it is to help that happen for as many patients as possible.

She works at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where about ten people arrive each week suffering from a heart attack. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Dozens more come in with suspect chest pain, angina, heart failure and disease problems.

It is a huge patient group and takes up a large part of the hospital's annual budget. There are about 50 beds dedicated to cardiac care and these are usually in use at all times.

Part of Miss Young's job is to ensure the beds are being used and not left empty needlessly.

This means co-ordinating exactly which patients have come in, where they need to be, what ward they will be sent to and how long they will be staying for.

To make this run more smoothly, Miss Young has set up a Heart Attack Care Pathway.

It is a simple idea that involves having one treatment booklet for every patient coming into the hospital with a suspected heart attack.

It will stay with them at every stage of their care.

The aim is to make it easier for doctors and nursing staff to see at a glance exactly how the patient has been treated and what is wrong with them.

Miss Young said: "This is much easier and more practical than the usual situation where different wards and departments will have different forms and files.

"It is only at a pilot stage but the indications so far are good. It is much easier for the patient if the people looking after them have got quick and easy access to their details and should also help to improve efficiency."

Other new schemes include giving heart attack victims a potentially life-saving drug within 20 minutes of arrival at A&E.

Patients who have had a suspected heart attack are also at risk from a blood clot forming in the arteries, which can stop blood flowing away from the heart and lead to major heart muscle damage.

The quicker the clot-removing drug streptokinase is injected, the less potential heart damage there is.

Government guidelines say by next April all patients brought in after a suspected heart attack should have the drug within 20 minutes if it is to work.

Towards the end of last year, patients arriving at the Royal Sussex were getting the drug after an average of 37 minutes, so new procedures were drawn-up to speed-up the process.

The first thing Miss Young did was to raise awareness with all nursing staff about the symptoms to look for in a patient at risk of developing a blood clot in the artery and the need to administer the drug as soon as possible.

This was done through training sessions and putting up notices reminding staff what to look out for.

They can then call a doctor and tell them how urgent the situation is.

The trust is now hitting the 20-minute target with its patients, six months before the Government's deadline.

Miss Young said spending time in A&E and the hospital's medical assessment unit was proving helpful.

She said: "The staff there are not specifically specialists in cardiac care so when I am there I can give specialist input where needed.

"The most important thing is to educate so the next time a patient comes in staff are aware of what to look for and can act more quickly."

As well as concentrating on reaction to and treatment of actual heart attacks, Miss Young is also planning to look more closely at the issue of heart failure.

This occurs when the heart pumping action is affected by disease, high blood pressure and other conditions such as obesity.

Symptoms include breathlessness, tiredness and ankle swelling, which need drug treatments and support.

Miss Young is building links between acute services provided at the hospital and primary care in the home, such as visits by district nurses.

She said: "The more we can work together the more we can ensure the patient receives the best possible care from when they get to the hospital to when they go home again."

Treatments in cardiac care are improving and developing all the time, which means people are living longer and more will need specialist long-term care.

Miss Young, who will be speaking at Monday's conference, said this was something she was keen to develop.

She said: "It is a huge issue and something that needs to be looked at now.

"Come next year it is an area of my job that I will be returning to again and again."