Hundreds of Bucks patients are being refused “life-changing” knee and hip surgery in the face of stretched NHS budgets.

A total of 1,300 “exceptional funding” requests were made by doctors in Bucks for the treatment last year, however 234 were rejected by the NHS.

Doctors apply to Clinical Commissioning Groups for the funding if the governing body requires specific criteria to be met before patients can be referred for certain procedures.

But with NHS spending being squeezed like never before, some areas have started using the funding for a wider range of treatments meaning some requests are being turned down.

Ian Eardley, senior vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: "Hip and knee surgery has long been shown to be a clinically and cost-effective treatment for patients.

"We are therefore appalled that a number of commissioning groups are now effectively requiring thousands of patients to beg for treatment."

The number of patients being turned down across the country for knee and hip treatment has almost doubled in the last year.

Commissioners blamed the surgery refusals on the winter crisis and said ongoing financial pressures in the NHS and CCGs efforts to reduce unwarranted clinical variation all contributed to the rise in the last year.

The NHS is considering whether to review the current locally-driven approach to hip and knee surgery commissioning and create more standardised thresholds for treatments across England.

Graham Jackson, co-chair of NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC), said consensus should be possible if policies are clinically-led and based on sound evidence.