CANCER patients in Wyre Forest are living under a "death sentence" because of excessive waiting times for crucial operations, it has been claimed.

Health campaigners said patients were facing a nightmare situation after being told they had the disease but then would have to wait up to eight weeks for a potentially life-saving operation.

Health Concern leader Howard Martin said: "We have been told of cases whereby people with certain cancers were being referred by their GP, are seeing their consultant, told they have cancer but will have to wait six to eight weeks for anything to be done.

"In some cases that is too long and is tantamount to a death sentence," added Mr Martin.

Party vice-chairman Malcolm Cooper added: "I cannot imagine how I would feel if someone said I had a potential terminal cancer but would have to wait two months to do something about it.

"If there is potential treatment down the line, then that is no good is it?" he added.

In an effort to force a change, Health Concern councillors last week urged members of Worcestershire County Council to press the Government for a re-think on waiting targets.Ministers want to set a maximum wait of two months before first treatment from the end of next year.

But the six Health Concern councillors on the county council said this would be "too long and too late" for many patients.

Sufferers should be seen in less than two months and the new targets should be enforced from the end of this year, a motion voted through by the full council meeting on Thursday (January 21) read.

A picture of how long patients are having to wait for operations was hard to pinpoint, Worc-estershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman Richard Haynes said.

Mr Haynes expl-ained: "Because we don't do radiotherapy here, the vast majority of patients would transfer outside of the trust area and so their data would go off with them, which we have had trouble monitoring."

He said steps were being taken by the trust to find out how soon the patients were operated on.

The trust is on course to meet another Govern-ment-set target of having all patients with suspected cancer referred from their GP for initial consultation within two weeks, added Mr Haynes.