A total of 500 patients on the waiting list at Crawley Hospital are to be moved to other hospitals up to 20 miles away to have their operations.

The decision was made by the Crawley Primary Care Group (PCG), which provides the funds for operations, to cut huge waiting lists at the hospital.

The first patients will be transferred out of the care of Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, by the middle of next month.Many will have been waiting up to 15 months for surgery.

Brian Howard, PCG chief executive, said the group would contact the first patients in the next few weeks to offer them operations within three months.

He said: "My advice would be to take up the offer instead of waiting a further six to eight months for an operation."

He said the PCG had received extra money from the Government to reduce waiting lists.

The group has drawn up a list of patients, targeting general surgery, orthopaedics and ear, nose and throat.

Mr Howard said: "We want to reduce the numbers of patients waiting over 12 months."

The PCG is close to signing deals with up to three hospitals to carry out the operations. They will not be named until contracts are signed.Where possible, transport will be provided for patients.

Mr Howard said he expected all 500 patients to have had their operations within the next six months.

The trust has to reduce its waiting list to 4,164 by March 2001 but expects to miss this by around 500. The waiting list stood at 9,088 at the end of last month.

A trust spokeswoman said it was an effective way of managing its waiting lists.

The decision to move patients away from Crawley Hospital was taken at a time when controversial plans were being made to remove some major services from the hospital.

The proposal to move maternity, accident and emergency and major surgery to East Surrey Hospital at Redhill has caused uproar in the Crawley area.

Campaigners are calling for a new hospital in Crawley and for services to be retained in the town until it is built.

The decision about the future of Crawley Hospital is to be made in the next few weeks by Health Secretary Alan Milburn.

Councillors from Crawley and Horsham will meet him soon in a last-minute attempt to save the hospital.

To add to the turmoil, the trust's chief executive, Isobel Gowan, is leaving at the end of the month. She faced vigorous opposition after leading the plan to downgrade the hospital.

She will be replaced on June 1 by Ken Cunningham, chief executive of Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

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