Hospitals were today given extra cash to help them cut the number of cancelled operations.

Four Sussex trusts will spend £75,000 each on appointing trouble-shooting managers to tackle the problem.

Health minister John Hutton is distributing the money to those trusts awarded one or no stars in the latest hospital rankings.

Brighton Health Care received no stars while Mid Sussex, Surrey and Sussex and Hastings and Rother all received one.

Latest figures show Brighton cancelled 152 out of 5,737 non-emergency operations between July and September last year.

This works out to about 2.6 per cent, well above the national average of one per cent but lower than the South East regional figure of three per cent.

A trust spokesman said: "This is a regional rather than an individual trust problem.

"There are issues such as delayed discharges, not enough nursing home places and a large population across the region.

"We welcome the extra money and believe it will be a great help to us.

"We have been working extremely hard to tackle this problem."

An unexpected rise in demand for beds forced the trust to cancel dozens of non-emergency operations early in the New Year, including cancer operations.

All four hospital trusts will have to meet specific targets for reducing cancellations set by the NHS Modernisation Agency and their performance will be subject to monthly reviews.

Cancelled operations are a major contributor to long waiting times and were one of the key factors used to assess trusts in the star rating system, which rated trusts from zero to three stars.

UK figures show that between July and September there were 20,901 last-minute cancellations.

Mr Hutton said: "Going for an operation is a traumatic experience. Having your operation cancelled at the last minute only heightens this trauma.

"It is unacceptable that in the 21st Century so many patients are having their surgery cancelled.

"Today's figures show wide variations in performance between hospitals. We are determined to tackle this."

The new managers will also look more widely at how hospitals are using operating theatres and work out ways they can plan operations better.