A schoolboy who lives two miles from a main hospital was taken on a 100-mile round trip to mend his broken arm.

A catalogue of blunders and breakdowns in communication meant the 11-year-old spent more than eight hours in agony.

Matthew Hudson was rushed to the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath by his parents after falling off his skateboard outside their Hassocks home at 5.30pm.

But he was left waiting as doctors debated whether his diabetes would prevent them from fixing his fractured wrist.

Eventually they decided it would and rang the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton to ask for help.

Doctors there at first agreed to treat him. But after another wait they called back saying they had changed their minds.

The Princess Alexandra Children's Hospital also refused to take him on. By midnight, doctors at the Princess Royal began contacting colleagues outside the county.

Six hours after he arrived in casualty, a bed and a willing team were found 40 miles away at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south London, to which he was despatched by ambulance.

And at 2.30am his injury was finally X-rayed and a cast applied.

His tired parents, Melanie, a care assistant, and decorator Paul, spent the night on makeshift beds in the casualty ward.

The family returned home at noon on Monday - almost 20 hours after the accident.

Senior health managers were in talks with his parents last night to determine why the blunder happened.

Melanie, 43, said: "We are spitting feathers. I still fail to see why three perfectly good hospitals in Sussex were unable to treat my son.

"He was in absolute agony and pleading with nurses to help him but none would take responsibility for him. We still do not know why the Royal Sussex refused to treat him and we want answers now.

"It's just crazy that a young boy can break his arm at 5.30pm in Mid Sussex and not get treated until 2.30am in south London.

"He has got wires in his arm now and a plaster on. We still do not know where we are supposed to take him to get them removed."

A spokesman for Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which also covers Mid Sussex, said the family was owed a big apology.

He said: "We are sorry they were messed around and in the course of the evening told different things by different people.

"One way or another the problem should have been resolved locally and we are still investigating why he was not transferred to either the Royal Sussex or the Princess Alexandra Hospital."

He said Matthew's diabetes meant a combination of specialist surgeons and nurses would have been needed to handle the otherwise simple procedures.

He said: "At the moment a team is not in place at Princess Royal which would have been able to treat Matthew but there was obviously a communication breakdown which did not help."