Patients suffering severe heart attacks in the west of Scotland are to be taken to just two key hospitals - passing all other A&E departments.

The Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank is to become the centre for serious heart attacks for Greater Glasgow and Clyde while Hairmyres in East Kilbride will serve Lanarkshire and much of Ayrshire.

This will mean longer journey times to hospital for many, but will give all patients access to what is widely considered to be the best treatment - an emergency angioplasty to open their blocked artery.

At the moment, the first line of treatment for most heart attack patients is a clot-busting drug, but research has shown emergency angioplasties - also known as primary angioplasties - increase the chance of survival and cut the risk of further heart attacks and strokes.

It is recommended patients undergo a primary angioplasty within 90 minutes of falling ill.

Dr Keith Oldroyd, clinical director for cardiology at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, said: "The critical component that has always been missing is the ability of the Scottish Ambulance Service to deliver patients directly to not necessarily the nearest hospital, but the nearest appropriate hospital - the same idea as someone who has a serious head injury being taken to the neurosurgical centre.

"It has become accepted now that patients with serious heart attacks should go to centres that can do primary angioplasty and if necessary bypass the nearest hospital."

The timetable for redirecting patients has yet to be confirmed, but Dr Oldroyd said he expected the plan to roll out during the next nine months.

Some 800 heart attack patients will be sent to Golden Jubilee each year under the scheme and 600 will be treated in Hairmyres.

Dr Oldroyd said travelling longer distances to hospital would not endanger patients. He said: "There is no evidence that transferring heart attack patients compromises their outcome at all."

Dr Robert Cumming, chairman of the Scottish Health Campaigns Network which represents groups fighting hospital service closures, said he thought patients would worry about longer journey times.

He said there was evidence taking patients straight to a coronary care unit was important, but questioned the provision of one centre for the whole of Glasgow.