While on holiday in Greece last October, my partner suffered a dislocated kneecap.

We visited the doctor at the island clinic and he put her leg in plaster and told us to return home for treatment as soon as possible.

Consequently, our holiday was cut short and we returned a week early and attended casualty at Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath, the day after our arrival home.

Having been examined, my partner was referred to a consultant fairly quickly and told that her left knee required surgery.

It is seven months later and we have heard nothing, except to be told by the consultant's secretary it will be at least a year because it is just a routine operation.

In fact, it is so routine that my partner struggles to look after our lively three-year-old son and has been unable to drive anywhere until recently, when I was able to save enough for an automatic car for her.

She is unable to take our son for walks or to the park because she has to use crutches because her knee gives way without warning and she cannot catch him when he runs off.

She is in constant pain and has been prescribed pain relievers and antiinflammatories.

These have reacted with her stomach and we now suspect she may have developed an ulcer, causing her more pain and discomfort and substantial weight loss because of being unable to eat normally.

When we contacted our GP, he told us it is not the consultant who decides who receives treatment but the hospital administrator and that recently the hospital spent £125,000 in one weekend as a one-off attempt to clear about 24 people off the waiting list.

A full-time consultant surgeon receives a salary of roughly £100,000 a year. Surely this money would have been better spent employing such a surgeon, who could have treated many more than 200 people if he carried out only one operation five days a week?

Our GP also told us a big part of the problem is because of bed-blocking caused by lack of facilities for elderly people on discharge who are unable to care for themselves.

I thank the administrators at the Princess Royal for prolonging the pain and discomfort my partner is suffering and completely destroying her enjoyment of our young son's development.

Added to this, they have done an admirable job of wasting NHS funds by delaying for so long they now have to spend more money on treating the other condition caused by their inaction.

-S G Skinner, Cuckfield