The concept of continued and progressive coronary care rather than intermediate coronary care is proposed.At each clinical stage the patient may be at risk and his management needs tv b3 planned appropriatelyprevention of the development of coronary disease, prehospital care, acute coronary care, subacute coronary care, and late hospital stay. Meticulous continued care once the patient leaves the hospital and returns home may be neededfor a long time.Although the benefit of an intermediate coronary care unit has not yet been proved, significant patient risk continues beyond 12 days of hospital admission. High risk patient subsets are emerging requiring careful continued monitoring and the ability to undertake emergency measures as needed, and this is particularly so in patients suffering large anterior infarction, in those with infarction associated with cardiac failure, when infarction is associated with fascicular block and other types of conduction disturbances, and in patients who continue with rhythm disturbances after their admission to the hospital. Electrocardiograph leads III and Vl displayed simultaneously should be routinely monitored in patients with fascicular blocks and acute anterior infarction as a guide to instituting prophylactic transvenous pacemaking.The continuation of intensive patient care and monitoring beyond the usual 2 to 5 days in a coronary care unit allows early mobilisation ofpatients in safety, thus speeding their ultimate rehabilitation.There is, as yet, no satisfactory study documenting the need for intermediate coronary care units, but much presumptive evidence is available to indicate that this is so. A carefully controlled randomised study z uld be invaluable.'Keep your enthusiasm, but let strict verification be its constant companion'-Pasteur. Despite some contrary views (Mather et al., 1971) most agree that coronary care units (CCU) reduce the mortality of acute myocardial infarction provided that the patient survives long enough to be admitted (Meltzer, 1968;Pantridge, 1970;Hofvendahl, 1971;MacMillan and Brown, 1971). In our own CCU an analysis of more than 500 proven cases of acute myocardial infarction has shown a progressive decline of mortality in the acute phases of myocardial infarction from more than 28 per cent