A pensioner fed up with NHS waiting lists is prepared to travel to France to have his hip replaced.

But Gerald Diamond, 65, feels he has been thwarted by NHS bureaucracy because East Sussex, Brighton and Hove Health Authority won't pay for the procedure abroad.

Mr Diamond, who had been told he could wait up to 15 months for the hip operation on the NHS, said he hadmade contact with a surgeon in France, where he has family, and had been told he could be operated on virtually as soon as he was free.

But Mr Diamond, from Crocks Dean, Peacehaven, cannot understand why the NHS.refused his request because it would eventually have to pay for the operation in a Sussex hospital.

Mr Diamond, who has formally complained to the health authority as well as his MP, said: "I am in extreme pain. I have had to take time off work and this is affecting my quality of life as well. If hospitals in Europe are willing to take us, why can't the health authorities pay for the operations?

"How much does it cost to get yourself to France these days? Not much. Then the services you need are right there."

A hip replacement in a British hospital would cost the NHS about £3,500. Mr Diamond's English surgeon has written in support of the operation being performed overseas. England has reciprocal health arrangements with European countries if an emergency strikes while someone is abroad. The NHS will also consider funding some specialist treatment not available in Britain.

East and West Sussex have two of the highest figures for people waiting for NHS procedures. At the end of May there were 18,848 people waiting for NHS operations in East Sussex.

The NHS national plan, released last week, pledged to dramatically reduce waiting lists and work more closely with the private health system so more patients could be operated on.

Mirella Marlow, the health authority's deputy director of performance management, said reducing waiting lists was not just a matter of money. Operations were funded according to people's need.

She said: "It is a matter of fairness and a matter of clinical need. We do understand why an individual would want quicker treatment if they were waiting in pain.

"But in a fairly short space of time we will have substantial reductions in waiting times nationally."