North East MP Kevan Jones has stepped up his campaign to tackle sudden heart attack deaths which strike the young.

The MP for North Durham said eight young people in the UK die every week as he backed moving to mandatory testing for heart conditions for youngsters. 

He believes GPs must be trained to treat sufferers, and coroners' systems improved to give faster answers to families, ensure they are tested for genetic links to conditions and provide better scientific information. 

Mr Jones vowed to raise awareness of the condition after the death of Levon Morland, the son of his god friends Jeff and Sandra Morland. 

During a Parliamentary debate he secured on the issue, Mr Jones said: "Jeff's son died in terrible circumstances. 

"He went to bed one night and, when his mother went to wake him the following morning, she found him dead in bed. 

"The circumstances were heartbreaking and, unfortunately, they are repeated weekly throughout the country," said the Labour MP. 

"We all assume that people die of heart attacks in their old age or middle age when they develop symptoms, but sudden cardiac death in the young is much more common than we like to think."

He works with charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY). 

Mr Jones added: "CRY is setting up testing centres in different parts of the country, and I am working with it to try to get one in the Freeman hospital in the North East."