Pioneering surgery is shown off at Blackpool Victoria Hospital

Dr Sanjay Deshpande, a heart doctor from Milwaukee, travelled across the pond to see Dr Scott Gall perform ablation surgery to treat an abnormal heart rhythm.

Dr Gall, a consultant cardiologist and electrophysioligist at the hospital’s Lancashire Cardiac Unit, said: “Patients across the county have been benefiting from this pioneering surgery for some time.

“We are a nationally accredited training centre in the UK but we are now also seen as an international training centre and have a number of people from all parts of the world looking to come to Blackpool to see what we do.

“Thanks to our fantastic cath lab staff we became the first independently accredited laser ablation centre in the world and also one of the most experienced centres for this procedure.

“I have presented our results at several international conferences and this has brought recognition for the work we are doing at the Lancashire Cardiac centre and is why people are keen to come across and see how we do it.”

The surgery, carried out to give patients with an abnormal heart rhythm ‘their life back’, involves a tiny camera within a balloon inserted through a vein in the leg under local anaethetic. There is no need to cut a patient’s chest open, and takes under 90 minutes.