A pensioner who was told he faced a three-year wait for hip replacement surgery on the NHS has said it was a “no-brainer” to travel to Lithuania and pay thousands of pounds for the operation .

Stephen Pitcher, 70, from the village of Ystalyfera in South Wales, travelled to the Baltic state in August after experiencing an “enormous amount of pain”. In total the trip cost him £9,000 – and his surgery was completed within three weeks of booking.

The Government has made bringing down waiting times for elective care its key target for the NHS, but latest figures for Wales show nearly one in four people are still on a treatment list – with the average waiting time at 21.1 weeks in Wales, compared with 13.1 weeks in England. New Feature

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