When Alan Peasnell was told he needed keyhole surgery on his knee, he thought he would have to wait a few months for an operation.

But the 60-year-old mechanical engineer from Peterborough ended up waiting for more than a year.

“I went to see the consultant with a knee problem,” Mr Peasnell said. “After MRI scans and X-rays they decided in early February last year that I required an operation.

“They sent me a letter saying that I’d have the operation within a few months. But from the time of a consultant saying I’d been put on the waiting list to getting the operation it was 13 months.

“While this was all going on some days I couldn’t walk at all. I was in pain and on antiinflammatories. It harmed my quality of life. People who are in pain like I was shouldn’t be kept waiting.

“It was frustrating knowing that the Government had set these targets but the money wasn’t being spent to get the operations done.”

To make matters worse, Pe-terborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust admitted two weeks ago that patients had their records falsified to bring waiting times down. Two members of staff are facing disciplinary action.

Despite being in robust financial health, the trust left more than 600 patients waiting up to 13 months for operations.

In a statement, the trust said: “The relevant patient administration records were falsified in several ways, retrospectively. This meant the ‘clock stopped running’ and the patient did not breach the six-month maximum waiting time.”

Mr Peasmore said: “I wasn’t happy when I found out what had happened. I felt my life was on hold for a year.”

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