A pensioner who flew thousands of miles for life-saving heart surgery said he would probably have died if he had stayed in England.

David Martin from Crawley has now returned home from South Africa after undergoing a triple heart bypass operation.

He praised the care he received in Cape Town and said the idea is something other people should consider.

Mr Martin, 76, wants his experience to give hope to other patients fed up with waiting for vital surgery. He was given the UK choices of waiting a year for his operation or pay a minimum of £22,000 to have it done privately.

Mr Martin said: "Few pensioners of my age have funds of this nature. Although they may well have paid into the NHS, in their final hour of need the best that can be offered is for them to be placed on an indeterminate waiting list."

The total charges for treatment in South Africa, including the hospital, theatre, anaesthetist, nursing care and physiotherapy, was just under £5,900.

Mr Martin, a former Merchant Navy captain, said: "That was a figure I could just about manage so I went ahead."

Mr Martin had his first heart attack in 1984 but suffered no further problems until last September, when he blacked out while shopping in Crawley.

At Crawley Hospital he had an ECG heart test but no problems were identified.

Shortly afterwards he went to Los Angeles for a holiday but while there blacked out again.

Doctors in the States also found the ECG inconclusive and wanted to carry out an angiogram, which would have shown any blockages or lesions in the arteries.

Mr Martin knew he would not be able to afford treatment in the US so decided to go home for his care instead.

He said: "I had hoped the NHS, into whose purses I had contributed for 49 years, would be able to help.

"But I couldn't get an appointment with my doctor for ten days.

"There was obviously not the slightest chance of having an angiogram on the NHS for the foreseeable future."

Mr Martin decided to go privately and was seen within 24 hours when he was referred to a surgeon in London.

The angiogram showed he had a serious blockage of his right artery and several lesions.

Mr Martin said: "An operation to deal with the defects was now a matter of urgency.

"But preliminary inquiries showed the waiting list would vary from six months to a year and even then there was no guarantee a bed would be available on the date."

Mr Martin was told by a friend to consider going abroad to the Panorama Medi-Clinic in Cape Town instead.

He contacted the clinic's surgeon who said he would be happy to deal with the bypass on whatever date was convenient for Mr Martin.

When Mr Martin arrived the surgeon told him his life was hanging by a thread and he needed to be operated on as quickly as possible.

There were no complications after the four-hour operation and after a few weeks Mr Martin flew back to Crawley.

He said: "There is no doubt in my mind that the availability of facilities and accomplished surgeons saved my life."

Mr Martin said his experience showed there were alternatives to the NHS and private system in England that were not completely out of people's price range.