PATIENTS are being sent on 200-mile round trips for routine operations as part of a cut-priced deal aimed at slashing waiting lists.

But thousands of pounds are also being spent at local private hospitals because some people are refusing to travel.

Government trouble-shooters have been sent to sort out the orthopaedic department at the cash-strapped East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust in a bid to improve the deal for patients.

East Lancashire Hospital bosses have struck deals with Gisburne Park in Gisburn and two other private hospitals in Barrow-in-Furness in a bid to keep within the Government's surgery waiting-time limits

The backlog is because there are too many patients requiring treatment for the the area's main hospitals, Blackburn Royal Infirmary, Queen's Park Hospital and Burnley General Hospital, to see them all within nine months.

Some patients have been refusing treatment in Barrow-in-Furness because it is too far away from home, forcing the Trust to pay £34,000 in August to the private Beardwood Hospital.

A Labour MP today joined patients groups in branding the decision to sign up with a hospital in Barrow-in-Furness as 'crazy' when a deal could have been struck with local hospitals.

Latest statistics from the Department of Health show that there are 139 patients in East Lancashire approaching the nine-month waiting mark for surgery. Any breach of the nine month target can affect assessments and future funding.

Rob Bellingham, the Trust's director of modernisation and service development, said: "To ensure we meet the nine-month target, patients are being offered treatment at private hospitals.

"In some cases, patients have felt that Gisburne Park or Barrow is too far away for people to visit them, so we have had to find alternatives."

The majority of patients approaching the nine-month mark have orthopaedic conditions -- which cover a wide variety of bone and muscle-related problems including hip replacement operations and knee operations.

The Modernisation Agency, a government health body, has been brought in to find out how the departments relating to orthopaedics across the Trust can be improved.

The situation is giving the area's Primary Care Trusts, which buy services for patients from the hospital trust, cause for concern.

A spokesman for the Blackburn and Darwen PCT confirmed it was holding weekly meetings on waiting list issues.

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope said: "It seems crazy that patients are having to travel such a long way for treatment. It would seem to make more sense to have them treated in private hospitals locally, if the NHS does not have the capacity. The patient has to be the priority."