Women in Sussex with breast cancer have to wait three times longer than recommended for life-saving radiotherapy.

The Royal College of Radiotherapists say patients should have the treatment within 28 days of surgery but those booked in at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton are waiting an average 12 weeks.

The delay in treatment could be putting women's recovery at risk according to the charity Breast Cancer Care, which has published a guide on cancer treatments in the UK.

Radiotherapy is offered to many women after surgery to kill cancer cells that may have been missed during the operation and has been shown to prolong survival in those patients eligible for treatment.

The Sussex Cancer Centre, based at the Royal Sussex, treats patients from across the county and has 10,000 visits to the radiotherapy unit a year - about 850 a month.

Managers say the wait will be reduced to five weeks by the end of the year when a new linear accelerator radiotherapy machine is installed at the hospital.

Unlike most other hospitals in the UK, the Royal Sussex has enough radiotherapists to operate the machines but, because of the demand, patients still have to wait.

A hospital spokeswoman said the high number of patients needing treatment and the availability of only three machines has until now contributed to the delays.

She said: "Obviously the waiting time is not acceptable at the moment and we recognise this.

"This is why we are taking radical steps to speed up the process.

"We applied to the Department of Health for funding to get another machine and were given the go-ahead.

"This will make an enormous difference to patients and staff."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We are working hard to increase the number of radiographers and improve equipment.

"The number of training places for radiographers has doubled.

"There have been more than 84 new linear scanners since April 2000 with an extra 20 machines due to be installed by the end the year, helping us to care for patients faster.

"We are heading in the right direction and survival rates are improving.

"Latest figures show a 12 per cent reduction in premature death rates in the past six years."

A report from the think-tank Reform published this month found 70 per cent of radiotherapy patients were waiting longer than four weeks, compared with 32 per cent five years ago.