A hospital has hit waiting list targets a month early, new figures show.

Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, which runs St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, is among seven in the south east to exceed the time limit.

A spokesman said it had particular success in cutting times for orthopaedic out-patients. Extra clinics had been held on Saturdays and in the evenings and patients had also been treated at the Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst.

Trust chief executive Robert Lapraik said: "We are absolutely delighted and the whole hospital team has achieved this success. It's in addition to all the elective and emergency work the hospital is under pressure to achieve and we still achieved the target.

"We are always planning to improve the standard of care for everything we do for our patients."

The figures have been released by the NHS Executive and show performance to the end of March.

South East Regional director of performance Bob Ricketts said: "We are particularly pleased that seven of our general hospitals actually achieved their waiting list targets for March at the end of February, a whole month early.

"The overall progress made in the South East reflects the great deal of hard work by clinicians and managers."