A patient is suing a hospital trust for almost £5,000 after he paid out to go private when his operation was cancelled.

Brian Adams paid to have his prostate operation done when hospital staff told him there was no guarantee surgery would go ahead on the next scheduled date given to him.

He has served a writ on Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, claiming £3,340 for the cost of the operation and £1,500 for loss of earnings and stress.

Mr Adams has been a taxi-driver for 13 years and says the pain he was suffering with his prostate problems was affecting his work and causing him discomfort.

He said: "I just don't see why people should have to put up with this. The last operation I needed was when I was 11 years old and since then I have been making my contributions to the NHS regularly.

"But when I need to have another operation I am faced with these problems."

Mr Adams, 57, from Hove, started to experience problems with an enlarged prostate gland in September and was on a course of tablets for a couple of months to try to clear the problem.

He had a catheter fitted because his condition meant he could not urinate properly. The tablets did not work and Mr Adams was told he would need an operation.

Surgery was scheduled to take place at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath on January 14.

He was contacted by the hospital on January 13 and told the operation was cancelled because of a shortage of beds.

Mr Adams was then given another date of February 11 but was told it was not definite the operation would go ahead.

Mr Adams said: "Faced with this situation, being in extreme pain, I felt I had no other option but to make arrangements to have my much-needed operation done privately."

The operation was carried out at the Ashdown Hospital in Haywards Heath on January 30.

Mr Adams is also unhappy at how he was treated when he visited the hospital's accident and emergency (A&E) department in January when he needed help to drain his catheter.

He is claiming a further £35.99 from the trust for clothes he said he had to buy at Marks and Spencer on January 29.

He said his underwear and trousers were in a disgraceful condition caused by the urine that had leaked on them while he was waiting to be seen at the A&E department and he needed to replace them so he could go back to work.

Mr Adams says he has still had no proper response from the trust to his original complaint about the cancelled operation that he made in January.

He said: "I feel the way this whole thing has gone and the way everything has been dealt with is disgraceful.

"I am angry I have had to pay to have this operation done. I am fortunate in that I was able to pay for the operation but there are many others in a similar position who cannot do the same.

"I feel it is time someone decided not to sit back and accept this but do something about it."

A trust spokesman confirmed a writ issued by Mr Adams from Haywards Heath County Court had been received and said: "We are taking legal advice on this at the moment and so it would be inappropriate at this stage to comment any further."

We recently reported at the trust's problems in dealing with more than 100 bed-blocking patients, staff shortages and sporadic outbreaks of the winter vomiting disease bug which led to the cancellation of non-emergency operations.