A SCHOOLGIRL’S operation was postponed...after hospital staff forgot about her.

Mum Sue Ashby is furious after workers at Basildon Hospital didn’t add her daughter Charlie to a waiting list of patients due to have their tonsils out.

The Woodlands School pupil is particularly keen to get her operation over and done with so she can go back to her hobby of singing songs she has written while playing her guitar.

Charlie, 15, was taken to hospital by Sue at 7am on Tuesday and was soon admitted to the Wagtail children’s ward for the routine operation.

But by 1pm, Charlie was getting anxious about when her operation was going to happen, and her mum asked a nurse.

Apologetic staff soon returned to say she had been overlooked and all the surgeons had left for the day.

Miss Ashby, 32, of Laindon, said: “She was starving because the operation meant she wasn’t allowed to eat anything since the day before.

“They went away for a few minutes and then came back and said, ‘sorry, I’m afraid she has been missed off the list’.

“I was told all the surgeons who could do the operation had gone home, even though Charlie had been waiting for hours.

“It was completely ridiculous. I had to take a day off work.”

The mistake was made after Charlie’s operation had already been put back twice in recent months. Staff offered to carry out the operation again tomorrow, which was the next available date.

But Miss Ashby said the operation has a two-week recovery time, so having Charlie’s tonsils removed then would have clashed with crucial GCSE exams she is due to take after the half-term break.

Nicola Laver, a hospital spokeswoman, said: “We would like to apologise once again to the family for missing Charlie off the operating list, due to an administrative oversight.”