Patients from East Sussex waiting for hip or knee operations are to be sent abroad for treatment.

The 15 patients from Eastbourne District General Hospital will travel to northern France in January.

The move is part of an expansion of a pilot project to send patients abroad for operations, including 50 patients from West Sussex who took part in the original scheme.

It will help cut waiting lists but health chiefs warned the scheme was a short-term measure and the main emphasis would be on developing ways for patients to be treated in the UK.

The Department of Health told primary care trusts sending people abroad was an option to cut lengthy waiting times for patients needing hip, knee and cataract operations.

Patients from Shoreham, Worthing and Mid Sussex were selected to go to hospitals in France and Germany. The first three were Mary Lumb, Joyce Hewitt and Joyce Marples, all from the Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill areas.

West Sussex was picked as a pilot site because it had one of the worst records in England for long waiting lists.

Now the scheme has been expanded to take patients from East Sussex.

A hospital spokesman said: "Yesterday they saw the French consultant and anaesthetist who will be treating them at the assessment clinic.

"They will travel to hospital in mid to late January."

It is believed the group will be treated in the smart resort town of Le Touquet in the Nord-Pas de Calais department of northern France.

The town is known as Paris by the sea and is considered an upmarket holiday destination for English and French tourists alike.