Residents in the suburbs of West Reading currently have routine minor operations done at Royal Berkshire hospital. But with Reading’s growing population and government pressure to cut waiting times, NHS managers have agreed to send more patients through Newbury’s doors for routine treatement.

However, health bosses have also warned Newbury that it could take in patients from as far as Wokingham in the future. Newbury Primary Care Trust met last week to discuss a report, which said: “In addition to the Newbury & Community PCT population, the hospital should also serve the 40,000 population that forms part of Reading PCT but live within the West Berkshire Council area. It may also be appropriate to further extend the catchment area of the hospital.”

A centralised waiting list run by Royal Berks NHS Trust will be created to manage the influx, with waiting list administrators from Newbury transferred to Reading NHS. The move has angered Newbury MP Richard Benyon, who has criticised centralisation of services.

The NHS says it must cut the time from referral to operation to 18 weeks by 2008, and argue that the new arrangement makes better sense, as many Newbury patients are diagnosed in Reading first. Newbury and Reading currently have different patient databases, so a merged IT system is expected to improve patient service.