WAITING times for Wyre Forest patients' prostate biopsies have been reduced after health chiefs admitted they were longer than they should be.

At the end of January, patients in the district were facing waits of up to 16 weeks for the procedure but the waiting time now stands at between two and three weeks.

Just five people were currently waiting for the procedure in Kidderminster, compared to 57 at the end of January - and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman, Richard Haynes, said it was hoped they would be dealt with by the end of the month.

It could be as early as next week, he added.

The news, which was announced at a trust board meeting, last Thursday, by John Rostill, chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, has been welcomed by the man who brought the issue into the public domain when he raised it at a previous trust board meeting in February.

The former prostate cancer sufferer, Malcolm Cooper, told the Shuttle/Times & News he was "very pleased" the trust had been able to reduce the waiting time for people waiting for treatment.

Mr Haynes said the new waiting time was proof that action had been taken to remedy a problem it had pledged to tackle.

He added the "biggest impact" on the waiting times had come from a consultant being drafted in from elsewhere in the trust to carry out extra sessions in Kidderminster.

He previously told the Shuttle/Times & News that the prolonged wait - which had increased from 12 weeks at the end of December - had been exacerbated by the absence of Kidderminster Hospital's consultant radiologist, Dr Umesh Udeshi, after he was injured in the Boxing Day tsunami.

He said the trust had realised it needed to increase the number of prostate biopsies carried out to reduce waiting times, last year, and was already in the process of training a peri-operative specialist practitioner (PSP) to carry out the procedure before Dr Udeshi was injured in the Asian earthquake.

Dr Udeshi returned to work just before Easter, when training of the PSP resumed, and Mr Haynes said it was hoped the PSP would be ready to carry out the tests shortly.