More than 7,000 patients had their NHS operation cancelled more than once in the last year, figures from the Conservatives revealed today.

One patient had an operation cancelled 21 times and around a third of trusts cancelled an operation for the same patient three times or more.

The figures were calculated from 124 NHS trusts across England and referred to operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons. These include a shortage of beds, missing patient records, staffing issues and a lack of equipment.

According to the statistics, 77,302 operations in total were cancelled for non-clinical reasons.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust has reported 406 operations cancelled due to non-clinical reasons on the day of surgery or following admission during 2007/08.

This compares with more 50,000 routine planned inpatient and day case procedures carried out by the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford’s Princess Royal. Four operations were cancelled on two occasions.

Adrian Osborne, the trust’s head of communication and business developments, said: “Whilst we do try to avoid causing inconvenience to our patients, there are unfortunately a variety of reasons why we may need to cancel an operation for non-clinical reasons.

“This might include vital staff becoming unavailable at short notice, for example due to sickness, needing to give priority to emergency admissions or previous operations taking longer than anticipated. We openly report the number of these cancelled operations.”

Today’s figures show nationally that another patient took precedence in 5,968 cases, 10,714 cases related to a shortage of beds, 16,614 were due to issues relating to the operating theatre and 2,635 were down to administrative problems.

Another 3,946 were due to issues with equipment, 11,370 related to staffing, 404 because the patient’s notes were missing and 11,585 were due to patient-related problems.

The Tories said the total number cancelled is far higher than those admitted to by the Department of Health – 57,350.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: “It’s simply unacceptable that these figures are so high and that the Government is spinning the official statistics to try to hide them.”

By Dave Morris