Hospital bosses were accused of sacrificing heart patients' welfare to meet targets yesterday after scrapping their operations.

Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust has wiped dozens of people from waiting lists for cardiac catheter ablation, the operation which cured Tony Blair of an irregular heartbeat.

The cash-strapped trust said it had been forced to restrict the treatment to only the most desperate cases in an attempt to cut costs.

But patients, pressure groups and MPs say they believe the operations - which have a 95 per cent success rate - were stopped to meet maximum six-month wait targets.

The alarm was first raised by the Arrhythmia Alliance a month ago after the patients' group was deluged by complaints from disappointed sufferers and concerned doctors.

Their letters to the Prime Minister and Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt went unanswered.

They now hope the public row will force the trust into a rethink and prevent other trusts around the country from using the same tactics.

Founder Trudie Lobban said: "The trust are saying it's because of the cost, but it's ironic that with one fell swoop they have got rid of their waiting list. Some of these patients cannot work - yet Tony Blair had the operation and he was back at work the next day, running the country."

She said her concerns were shared by Professor Roger Boyle, the Government's heart tsar, who was "appalled" by the decision to cut the operations.

Oxford University administrator Stephen Eeley, who was dropped from the list, said he now faced spending the rest of his life breathless and tired.

He said he was furious to be told he no longer met the criteria for treatment after months on the waiting list.

"This is exactly the same thing that Tony Blair suffered," he said. "To suffer what he suffered and to have no recourse to anybody is extremely frustrating. They sorted him out immediately.

"This is not a life-threatening condition, but it is a condition that massively reduces quality of life."

Mr Eeley's MP, Liberal Democrat former GP Evan Harris, said: "The only thing managers in the NHS are interested in now is not whether patients get treated but whether they lose performance points for missing targets."

He said the trust could not carry out the treatment for less than twice the £2,000 Department of Health limit and would have to pay £7,000 to have it carried out in the private sector.

Ms Hewitt said she understood patients' concerns but insisted it was a local decision. She said: "Unfortunately, the NHS in Oxford, including the Radcliffe, has been overspending on its budget despite the fact that they have got more money than they have ever had before and they are having to deal with that situation."

The trust said the changes had been made in an attempt to balance the books.