NORTH Yorkshire's good health record was challenged today as experts revealed the true cost of heart disease in the county.

Coronary heart illness claims more lives in North Yorkshire than in almost any English district of its kind, health managers warned.

If the county had performed as well as the best in its group, no fewer than 42 people aged under 65 might have lived through 1996 - the most recent year for which statistics are available.

The figures were released by North Yorkshire's medical director, Professor Mark Baker, as the county's health authority drew up a blueprint to drive down coronary heart disease over the next decade.

The authority is seeking to play its part in the national crusade against the disease, recently announced by York's national heart czar, Roger Boyle.

Professor Baker said North Yorkshire might at first appear relatively healthy in terms of heart disease, with death rates consistently lower than for the region and for England as a whole.

But when compared with six other regions sharing similar incomes, countryside and coastlines, North Yorkshire's death rates were second highest.

"If North Yorkshire were able to achieve the rate of the best authority...there would have been 42 fewer deaths from heart disease in the under-65s in 1996," said Prof Baker. "This would equate to a 22 per cent reduction in deaths in the age group."

Heart disease still had a huge impact on the county, claiming the lives of more than a quarter of the 2,100 who die each year. A third of those killed are under 65.

"Coronary heart disease is devastating for the individual and for their family and places huge costs on health and social services," said Prof Baker. "The health authority needs to ensure that there is sufficient investment in those strategies which seek to prevent the next generation acquiring the pattern of risk factors that contributed to the increase in morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease in the second half of the last century."

Prof Baker said North Yorkshire was making "excellent progress" in implementing the Government's National Service Frameworks - targets aimed at improving the nation's health.

He said anti-smoking alliances were well established in York and Selby and lessons learned from the pilot specialist smoking cessation service developed at York District Hospital would assist the development of other such schemes in the county.

Prof Baker also praised the Heartsave North Yorkshire scheme launched in 1998 to minimise any delay in seeking professional help for those with a suspected heart attack.

Today was the deadline for the health authority to submit a plan setting out its approach to the immediate priorities identified in the Government's National Service Frameworks.