PATIENTS in East Lancashire waiting more than six months for an operation will soon be given the option to have it earlier at a hospital elsewhere in the country.

A new government scheme, Choice, will revolutionise the way patients are referred from GPs to hospitals.

Local hospitals and primary care trusts are now working together on the scheme, which the government wants to come in next summer.

But by 2005, all health trusts will be required to offer patients a choice of four or five hospitals or treatment centres when their GP makes a referral to more specialist care.

The director of nursing and quality for East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, Richard Gildert, said: "This is the next stage in the government's efforts to drive down waiting times.

"Clearly it is a very important and complex scheme and we are working closely with our partners in primary care to put the plans into place."

Health officials are putting together a plan which will be examined by Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority.

The Department of Health ran several pilot schemes last year, in which hospitals with the capacity to carry out additional operations were used to reduce waiting lists.

For example, heart patients in East Lancashire, usually treated at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, were given the chance to go elsewhere.

Last year, former Accrington Stanley player Russell Cuddihy was offered the chance to have his double heart bypass at a hospital in Glasgow after he had waited ten months at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

Russell, 64, said: "It was absolutely brilliant and I'd recommend it to anybody. The staff were amazing."