A PEMBROKESHIRE mum has finally been referred to England for a bowel operation after being trapped in the Welsh NHS for 17 months.

Kelly Thomas from St Florence urgently needs the operation but local hospitals said they couldn't perform it.

Swansea's health board could provide the care, but their waiting list was too long and could not give her a date for the operation.

But the Welsh NHS refused to refer her for treatment in England - where there is just a nine week wait - because the operation was technically "available" in Wales.

Her predicament was raised by her then MP Simon Hart in Prime Minister’s Questions and the health minister, Jeremy Hunt, wrote to his Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford urging him to intervene.

Mr Drakeford then contacted the health board chairs in west Wales asking them to look into the case.

Now Kelly, aged 36, has finally been referred by the Welsh NHS to St Mark’s Hospital in Middlesex for the operation.

“It’s been a 17-month battle with the Welsh NHS to get Kelly this referral,” said Mr Hart.

“She has spent every day in pain and unable to work, stuck in limbo. I am so relieved that she is a step closer to getting this much-needed operation but I am angry that it has taken a year and a half of shouting, campaigning and negotiating to get this far."