I feared I'd die on NHS list so paid for heart op

Navy vet used pension for vital £25k surgery

- BY MARTIN BAGOT Health Editor

A NAVY veteran told how he had to raid his pension to pay privately for heart surgery because he feared he would die on the NHS waiting list.

Ex-weapons engineer Neil Wogan, 52, says doctors told him he urgently needed open heart surgery but would have to wait several months for it on the NHS.

The Police Community Support Officer was diagnosed after the Tories oversaw a trebling of the NHS waiting list in England.

The father-of-two will now have to retire later after withdrawing £25,000 from his pension pot.

He said: "Before the surgery, I felt like a ticking time-bomb, and that my heart could fail at any moment.