INCREASING numbers of Gwent's ear, nose and throat (ENT) patients face lengthy waits for treatment and outpatient appointments because there are not enough consultants. Two more surgeons are needed to close the gap between capacity and demand, but the money - between £450,000 and £500,000 - is not available.

Hospital bosses are lobbying the National Assembly to try to prevent the specialty becoming what one manager called "a second orthopaedics".

Orthopaedic waiting lists and times have proved a particularly difficult problem to crack in Wales, especially in Gwent, where demand outstrips capacity.

Alan Davies, general manager at Newport's Royal Gwent Hospital, warned that ENT is heading for similar long-term waiting time problems as orthopaedics.

He and other trust managers raised the issue with Dr Brian Gibbons, the Assembly's deputy health minister, who visited Gwent this week.

"We have four surgeons covering an area with nearly 600,000 residents. There is a large head and neck cancer workload, which more or less takes up one consultant's time, and consultants are seeing too many patients in outpatient clinics," said Mr Davies. "ENT will become a second orthopaedics unless we are careful."

There was a 28 per cent increase (4,522 to 5,825) in patients awaiting a first ENT outpatient appointment between April and October, and an 81 per cent increase (1,314 to 2,382), in outpatient waits longer than six months.

The treatment waiting list rose by 23 per cent (1,678 to 2,071) from March to October, but the number of patients waiting above 12 months for treatment almost trebled, from 234 to 698.