Heart disease is one of the biggest killers in the country, and Bradford is notorious as a place where it claims a high number of victims. So it is good news indeed that the city should have been provided with a new £1 million state-of-the-art cardiac catheter unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

Although the official opening is tomorrow, the unit has been up and running since May and has already proved its worth. The new facility has more than doubled the number of angiograms able to be performed each week in Bradford, speeding up any subsequent treatment which might be necessary and avoiding the need to send patients elsewhere to have their tests.

It must be reassuring for the 2,000-plus people admitted each year to the coronary care department at the BRI to know that they now have this facility on their doorstep. However, swift diagnosis and treatment remains only half the story as far as health care is concerned.

The level of heart disease in this city has for some years been a cause for concern. The message about lifestyle measures which individuals can take to protect themselves seems to be slow to get across.

Developments like the new cardiac catheter laboratory are important and very welcome. But there remains a continuing and pressing need for health education in this field.

The most welcome breakthrough of all will come not when the coronary care department is able to treat more people, but when fewer people in Bradford need treatment.