Heart attack victims are being denied prompt life-saving treatment because of a row over funding, an MP has claimed.

Hospitals are failing to meet official targets for administering essential drugs because local health trusts, West Midlands Ambulance Service, and the hospitals themselves cannot agree on who should pay for it, said Gisela Stuart (Lab Edgbaston).

Ms Stuart has stepped into the dispute after she was alerted to the problem by senior executives at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in her constituency.

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She said: "It is ridiculous that red tape is putting lives at risk in this way."

Patients with symptoms indicating a heart attack are supposed to receive drugs to break up blood clots, known as thrombolytic agents, within one hour of an ambulance being called.

But the Queen Elizabeth Hospital meets this target in only 54 per cent of cases. It says the failure is caused by delays getting the patient to hospital, as ambulances are frequently caught up in heavy traffic.

As a result, West Midlands Ambulance Service has trained its staff to administer the drug themselves, while the patient is still travelling.

But when it appealed to the local primary care trusts for funding, estimated at £84,000 a year for the whole city, it was turned down.

The ambulance service then asked hospitals to supply it with the drug. However, the hospitals could not agree on which type of thrombolytic agent to use.

West Midlands Ambulance Service staff have been trained to use a brand called Tenecteplase, which is one of the most expensive at £400 a dose, but also one of the safest to administer.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital estimates this would cost it £15,000 a year. But, until agreement can be reached, the drug cannot be used.

As well as putting lives at risk, hospitals will be marked down in next year's inspections by the Healthcare Commission, the official NHS watchdog, unless they provide treatment within an hour for at least 68 per cent of patients.

Ms Stuart said: "It is ridiculous that this treatment is not administered because of bureaucratic difficulties.

"What is important is that patients get the treatment. It seems to me that the primary care trusts are really responsible for this, and I want them to sort it out.

"The ambulance trust has put everything in place to let the treatment be administered, so they have no excuse."

A spokeswoman for South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, which covers the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, said: " Birmingham performs well with patients who have had a heart attack with the West Midlands Ambulance Service picking up and taking patients to accident and emergency departments in order for clot-busting drugs to be given to patients within one hour."

She added: "Patients have the injection within this time at hospital or in the ambulance on the way. For patients in South Birmingham, hospitals are in easy to reach locations and, therefore, patients receive the necessary injection at hospital."

Iain Robertson-Steel, consultant medical director with West Midlands Ambulance Service, said: "It is a costly service and not something we could provide without funding.

"For three years I have put in a bid to the PCTs, and the bid has been turned down."