More than 60 operations had to be cancelled on the day at Mayday Hospital last year due to a lack of beds.

A Freedom of Information request revealed 64 operations were cancelled on the day of admission in 2008 as a ward bed was unavailable, up from just 15 the year before.

The figure marks a three year high for on the day cancelled operations, with 81 in total.

Other reasons for cancellations include three operations cancelled by the consultant, three times a surgeon was not available and nine classified as “other”.

The results for 2008 buck a trend of decreasing cancellations, after Mayday had only 27 cancelled operations in 2007 and 54 in 2006.

But the figure is much less than 2005, when 217 operations were cancelled, including 180 due to a lack of beds.

A spokeswoman for Mayday Hospital said: “Cancelling an operation on the day of the appointment is not something that Mayday does willingly and it is usually because of an emergency elsewhere.

“In the last few months of 2008 we saw an increase in the numbers of surgical emergency admissions but we have not identified any single reason for this.”

Mayday has tried to reduce the risk of cancellations by reducing the average length of stay for surgical emergency admissions by setting up a surgical assessment unit, restructuring admission lists so the hospital has the same number of elective patients every day, and increasing the number of beds on one surgical ward .

The spokeswoman added: “Although 64 cancellations through lack of bed availability is higher than we would like, it does compare favourably with the 180 such cancellations in 2005 which shows that, although the Trust is not complacent, some very real and sustained improvements have been put in place in recent years.

Health Watchdog Geoff Martin from London Helath emergency said: “All of the patients that have had their operation cancelled on the day of their admission or operation are rebooked within 28 days of the original cancellation date.

"We have warned that there is a dangerous shortage of front line bed capacity at May Day and across SW London and these latest figures confirm our fears. We urgently need a review of the bed and stffing levels we really need to avoid this routine cancellation of operations."

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