A PATIENT waiting for surgery faces many worries. But what they most want is to get the operation over with so they can have a chance to recover. In light of this, cancelled operations must rank as the greatest frustration of all.

All that anxiety and pre-op stress will be for nothing if the operation does not proceed.

Our report today on the rise in cancellations is alarming. According to information released via a freedom of information request, more than 1,500 operations were cancelled at York Hospital last year – the highest number in four years.

The reasons given vary from staff shortages, holidays, sickness and study leave, to bed shortages and other operations being given priority.

No organisation is perfect and some of those cancellations will have been unavoidable.

But the hospital still needs to bring those figures down, something its own bosses know only too well.