David Ruffley has today written to Chris Bown, the Chief Executive of the West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust to ask for an explanation of the shocking new figures for the level of cancelled operations.

A written parliamentary answer to David Ruffley MP from the Secretary of State for Health shows the shocking level of operations being cancelled at the last minute, for non clinical reasons, at the West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust. The written Ministerial statement shows that for the last two quarters of 2003/04 alone there were over 300 cancelled operations. This is 50% higher than the figure for the entire previous year.

David Ruffley said:

'I have written to the Chief Executive to ask for an explanation of these new figures that I have extracted from Health Ministers. It would seem this problem is getting drastically worse in recent months and something must be done to halt this decline. These cancelled operations will be costing taxpayers and patients.'