Hospital officials have said that British cardiologists used a robotic arm to perform surgery to correct an irregular heartbeat while the surgeon was in another room.

Officials at Glenfield Hospital, one of England's primary hospitals for coronary care, said that the procedure, a medical first, involved passing a thin metal wire along the patient's blood vessels and into the heart where a precise dot of heat was then applied to a faulty section of heart muscle.

The officials also said that cardiologist Andre Ng of the nearby University of Leicester carried out the procedure using the $540,000 Catheter Robotics Remote Catheter Manipulation System.

Britain's Daily Telegraph also noted that Tony Blair was treated for a similar atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation condition when he was Britain's prime minister in 2004 -- but his procedure, at a different hospital, was carried out by hand.

The Telegraph said that doctors normally must stand over the patient wearing lead aprons to protect themselves from dangerous levels of radiation from frequent X-rays, taken to guide to the wire into place.

But with the new robot, made by Catheter Robotics Inc. of Budd Lake, N. J., a doctor can sit in an adjacent room, with no need for protection, and control the metal wire using a joystick and monitors.

Britain's Daily Mail further reported that the traditional procedure takes up to 8 hours, but the operation on retired postal worker Kenneth Crocker, 70, of Burton Upon Trent, England, was completed in 1 hour.

The Mail also said that doctors can be trained on the catheter manipulation system in about 15 minutes. (With Inputs from Agencies)