Patients will transfer to a unit at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle

Operations at the Scottish National Heart Transplant Unit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary have been stopped while independent experts carry out a review.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said four of the 11 patients who had transplants this year died within 30 days.

While the review is taking place Scottish patients will be switched to a waiting list in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "This means that those who are on the Scottish waiting list will not be denied the chance of a new heart while transplant operations are suspended in Glasgow.

"We have already contacted the patients on the waiting list to let them know of this temporary arrangement."

'Centre of excellence'

The UK average death rate of transplant patients within 30 days is about 13%. In Scotland, it currently stands at 36%.

Organ retrieval, pre-operative assessment and post-op care will continue to be provided by the Scottish team.

The local health board said such reviews were not unusual and one had recently taken place at Papworth hospital in Cambridgeshire.

The unit which serves Scotland is based in Glasgow Royal Infirmary

Scotland's only heart transplant unit opened in 1992 but was forced to close temporarily in 2000 because of a shortage of surgeons.

Surgery resumed in 2001 but two years later a review of its long term viability was ordered for a unit caring out only a handful of transplant operations a year, each costing the NHS more than �300,000.

The then Scottish health minister Malcolm Chisholm said the review came to the clear conclusion that the unit should remain.

"This is an existing centre of excellence and I'm sure Scottish patients would prefer to be treated here," he said.

Clinical and technical experts are expected to begin their review in early January.