PENSIONER Angela Gore had her operation cancelled just minutes before she was due to go into surgery, on the day major hospital cutbacks were announced.

The 64-year-old from Ruardean Hill had been on a waiting list to have her knee replaced for three months, prior to the operation being cancelled yesterday morning.

Her husband Alan, who is the manager of Age Concern in the Forest, had dropped her off at the surgical administration area of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital at 7.15am.

"She went through the pre-operation assessment and at 10am they gave her some pills," said Alan.

"Soon after that there was a rumour going round that there were no beds available.

"This was confirmed at 11am and the surgeon was as surprised as we were. I went to pick her up and had to take her to the cafe at first to calm her down. The four other people who were waiting to go into surgery were in tears.

"It's a disturbing thing to be on the verge of an operation and to be told there aren't any beds."

The couple have been told that another appointment will be found for Angela within the next 28 days.

"Angela had prepared herself mentally and physically for the operation and we had made arrangements for her support afterwards," said Alan.

"But we were left high and dry."

Kate Jeal, spokeswoman for Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, said the operation had to be cancelled as their 24 specialist orthopaedic beds were all in use.

"We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused to Mrs Gore in that we were unable to give her any more notice of the cancellation," she said.

"We have a limited number of specialised orthopaedic beds – which are separate from medical and trauma beds – and unfortunately patients that normally would have been discharged were not.

"If we do not have the beds we cannot go ahead with the operations. We cannot discharge patients before they are ready."