Geoffrey Horne is turning his back on Colchester General Hospital

Geoffrey Horne says he feels bitterly let down after being told he faced up to nine months wait for surgery at Colchester General Hospital, Essex.

Instead he is paying �820 to have his operation in Germany.

Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust said the chances of waiting the maximum length of time were reducing all the time.

Mr Horne said he was simply not prepared to wait for nine months.

Heart surgery

"I am not a young man and I want some active years of life yet. I have so much to do. I'm not ready to go yet," he said.

Healthcare trust spokesman Graham Smith said: "What we have been doing is sending out our standard letters telling patients like Mr Horne about the likely longest length of wait and we are rather guilty of not advising patients that the likelihood of waiting that long is reducing all the time."

Bob Couch, from Denham, Suffolk, would have waited up to seven months for a new heart valve or pay �15,000 to have the operation privately.

He also went to Germany for his surgery and saved �5,000.

Mr Couch said doctors there were shocked at what they found.

"They put me to bed. They wouldn't let me walk about anywhere and that's when they said they couldn't understand how I could possibly be on a waiting list in Britain."

Papworth, his local hospital, said it could not comment on individual cases but was working hard to cut waiting times.

Waiting times

On Wednesday BBC Look East contacted three hospitals in the region.

In Bedford the wait for a hernia operation is up to eight months, in Peterborough a hip replacement will take up to six months and in Ipswich the wait is up to three months for a cataract operation.

Those figures come on the day the Tories pledged to cut waiting times with more private sector involvement. Labour say no one will wait more than three months by 2008.

Mr Horne flies out next week for an operation which will take just half an hour.