MINERS seeking damages for debilitating lung diseases are facing yet another delay, the Argus can reveal.

Around 15,000 claimants for chest diseases in Wales are still waiting for their medical assessment, but only between 30 and 40 have appointments between now and Christmas.

It is another delay for miners and their families - one of a number highlighted by our three-year campaign to speedup payments. We have since exposed delay after delay in the system, including:

* the double checking of medical assessments; * younger, fitter miners being dealt with first; * agreement over compensation for pensions loss not being reached.

Under pressure from the Argus, successive energy ministers brought in new schemes in an attempt to cut through the red tape.

More claimants became eligible for fast-track offers, the claims handlers (IRISC) opened an office in Cardiff to deal specifically with Welsh cases and a group was set up to monitor the progress of claims.

Now Wales Office Minister Don Touhig has said an urgent meeting will be held to sort out the latest bottleneck.

He said that although 2,646 full and final offers were made in Wales between September 1 and October 13 there was now a blockage at the start of the system.

But he said the delay should not affect Energy Minister Brian Wilson's promise to make 15,000 full and final offers in Wales by the end of 2002 - and that they were "probably only a few thousand short" of the target.

Mr Touhig, speaking after a meeting of the group monitoring the progress of claims in Wales, said: "It is the first time full and final offers being made have started to outstrip the number of new claims coming in. But we are concerned that at the start of the process the numbers being put forward for medical assessment are very few and we are trying to find out what the problem is.

"As we are pushing ahead with full and final offers we don't want to build up a backlog with thousands going for MAPs (medical assessment process) next year."

Bleddyn Hancock, of mining union NACODS, said: "There appears to be about 15,000 claims that are still awaiting a full medical, so somewhere along the line the process is not working. It's no good speculating why that may be."

But a spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said: "Having investigated the matter we do not believe this is the case."

* The company SchlumbergerSema took over the health assessments from Healthcall on November 1 after the latter's contract came to an end.