"IT'S nice, isn't it?" says Richard Adams pointing to his widescreen television. "But it's pointless me having it because I can't see anything."

Richard, 85, is blind in both eyes as a result of cataracts, but spends all his time in front of the television, listening to documentaries or the news.

Wheelchair-user Richard started losing his sight three years ago, but for the past six months has been almost completely blind in both eyes and feels trapped in the one room of his home in Ealing, west London.

With the remote control hanging in an old jaffa-cake tin strung round his neck, Richard tells me how he dreams of putting his mind to use - but is stranded because he is still waiting for an operation to cure his blindness.

Former engineer Richard told the Ealing Times: "I have all these ideas in my head but I can't see to write and I can't see to draw.

"I never cook anything - it always has to be cold things like sandwiches or salad. I can't go to the shops because I can't see where I'm going.

"I've been waiting for three years but they don't seem to care. I think they're just waiting for me to die or something.

"All I can do is sit in my house and listen to the TV. I can't see it and I have to turn up the volume because I can't hear well. My life is being wasted."

Richard, who used to chair the Acton and Ealing Operatic Society, has suffered from a stroke, asthma, gout, MRSA and has to use a catheter. He says he is also suffering from a kidney stone which has not been treated.

The keen guitarist, who can no longer play, has been to Ealing Hospital, West Middlesex, and the Moorfields Eye Hospital unit on numerous occasions but says nothing is ever done.

He believes surgeons are concerned about how his heart would cope under surgery but says he has never had anything wrong with his heart apart from an irregular beat.

He said: "I had a meeting with the surgeon last week and he said he was going to talk to the heart bloke and call me as soon as he knew anything.

"That was a week ago and I haven't heard anything as usual."

Richard, who was once an award-winning ballroom dancer, says he hopes something maybe done after he told a nurse that he understands why people on NHS waiting lists resort to suicide.

A spokesman for Ealing Hospital have said if Richard has concerns he should either write to his GP or Ealing Hospital NHS trust's chief executive.

Spokesman Mark Purcell said: "The best thing he can do is go back to his GP to get the various organisations to see to him.

"If he has a complaint about the standard of care he has received he should write to the chief executive of the Ealing Hospital trust."

Due to time restrictions Moorfields Hospital were not able to comment by the time of going to print.