Health Secretary Frank Dobson has earmarked an extra £859,000 to help cut patient waiting lists in Oxfordshire.

The cash is part of the region's share of the £500m extra for the NHS announced by Chancellor Gordon Brown in his March budget. Hospitals in the Oxford and Anglia region have already received £27.5m for increasing the number of operations.

The new funds will go to projects which will stop unnecessary admissions and allow people to leave hospital more quickly.

Mr Dobson said: "This extra money will be used in all areas that support hospital work. Taking a lead from many successful programmes which took the NHS through the winter so well, these local initiatives will take a whole system approach to the NHS, ploughing money into primary, community and mental health services.

"Every one of these imaginative and effective schemes will cut waiting lists further, measured against the clear targets every NHS region has set for this year." Earlier this year, Oxfordshire received £2.9m to slash waiting lists by doing more operations. Oxfordshire Health Authority pledged to cut its list by nearly 3,000 patients to just 10,744 in the next few months.

Hospitals in Oxford and Banbury are bearing the brunt of the extra workload.

The money should cut waiting times for operations such as cataract removal, heart surgery and hip replacement. The authority has reiterated its pledge not to have anyone waiting more than 18 months for an operation.An extra £250,000 will pay for an alternative admission service for adults in Oxfordshire, providing out-of-hours support and crisis services for those with special needs.

Andrea Young, Oxfordshire Health Authority's Director of Development and Implementation, said the extra cash was welcome news for the region.

She said: "It's designed to keep people out of hospital and to reduce pressure on the hospitals."

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