He said his doctor assured him that it wasn't connected to anything more serious.
''I feel fine; I feel great. What happens every so often is that you get a flutter. . . . Apparently there is a procedure that is very easy to do and fixes it."
Blair made the statement hours after appearing onstage for the closing ceremony of the annual Labor Party convention in the seaside town of Brighton, where he won the backing of his party to keep British troops in Iraq, avoiding a humiliating defeat that would have undermined his premiership.
The heart condition affecting the 51-year-old prime minister was discovered a year ago when he was treated at a London hospital for a rapid, irregular heartbeat. An electric jolt was used to return his heart rhythm to normal. On that occasion, he was back at work a day later, defying doctors' orders to take 24 hours rest.
A month later, in November 2003, his aides were quick to play down another health scare when Blair called doctors to his official residence. The prime minister's office said he was suffering from a stomach ache that passed quickly with no treatment from the two doctors who examined him.
Cardiologist Punit Ramrakha explained in a detailed statement that ''the heart's rhythm is controlled by a network of nerves which lie within the heart's walls -- rather like the electric wire circuits in our homes. In some people, a sort of 'short circuit' can develop, producing a change in the heart's rhythm, either making the heart beat faster or making it beat irregularly."
Ramrakha said that drug treatment is often used to treat the condition but in recent years a procedure known as catheter ablation has also been used. A long, thin wire is inserted into large veins and moved via X-ray until the tip of the catheter is inside the heart chambers.
The announcement of the planned medical procedure came on the day his party's five-day convention ended, a gathering from which Blair emerged scratched but intact, looking ahead to national elections expected next year.
