AN extra £2.2m in funding is to be ploughed into reducing waiting lists for patients needing cataract surgery in Worcestershire, it has been announced.

And a Government initiative - Patient Choice - that will allow patients to elect where they have their surgery, and comes into force next April, could wipe out waiting lists for cataract surgery altogether, say health officials.

At a board meeting of the West Midlands South Strategic Health Authority yesterday, members heard how a new scheme is underway that will see cataract operation waiting lists reduced to a maximum of three months by next August.

The new scheme will be implemented by all of the eight primary care trusts run by the WMSSHA - which includes South Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Wyre Forest and Redditch and Bromsgrove.

The news will affect thousands of elderly people, the vast amount of whom are currently having to wait six months or more for cataract surgery.

Keith Orford, director of performance and finance for the WMSSHA believes the introduction of Patient Choice, together with the new scheme, could see cataract waiting lists becoming a thing of the past.

He said with the extra funding, along with the new treatment centre at Kidderminster, the WMSSHA's capacity to carry out cataract operations would outweigh demand for them.

"Patients will be able to see which is the quickest place to have their surgery under Patient Choice which will have a massive impact next April," he told the board at the meeting held at the authority's headquarters in Osprey House, Albert Street, Redditch.

"With cataract surgery we will be ahead of the game.

"I expect these three-month waiting lists will eventually not exist - effectively there will be no waiting lists.

"If it works, we can then take it speciality by speciality and see the knock-on affect on all waiting lists."