TWENTY years ago William MacNeal, now 31, underwent a painful tonsillectomy using the traditional method.

This involves cutting and pulling out the tonsils with scissors or a knife then using temperatures of around 300 degrees to seal the blood vessels which results in a lot of post-operative pain because it burns other parts of the throat too.

Yesterday, just an hour after her tonsillectomy, his daughter Jessica was eating toast and cereal then playing with other youngsters on the children's ward at Blackburn Royal Infirmary.

Seven-year-old Jessica, a pupil at Shadsworth Infant School, Blackburn, was Michael Timms' latest patient to undergo a coblation tonsillectomy.

The 10-minute procedure, developed by the consultant ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon who works in hospitals across Blackburn and Burnley, uses a cold saline solution to dissolve and suck away tonsil tissue at low temperatures.

The method is much less painful and patients can go home the same day, but it has been dogged by controversy.

Mr Timms said: "It is controversial because we are in the middle of a national audit. The Royal College of Surgeons is recording the outcomes in terms of haemorrhage for whatever procedures are used for tonsillectomies.

"The overall figures do suggest the most old fashioned way with stitches is the safest followed by using the hot rod, and coblation comes in close third.

"Unfortunately at least half the figures are from people who are still learning how to do it.

"Hopefully this webcast will have helped by showing how it is done." Mr Timms adapted the equipment used and method of surgery from a technique used to cure snorers, which he had seen at a convention in Rome.

During Jessica's operation 1,750 people across the world logged on to watch; more than 10,000 people visited the website; and around 45 people -- from across Europe, and some from Singapore and Australia -- emailed in questions.

Mr Timms said: "It was nerve-racking leading up to the procedure but it was just like being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to do something, you don't feel like getting up but when you get there you do your job."

For William and Sharon MacNeal, both 31, it was an emotional experience.

Sharon said: "We were wary at first but thought that if people are learning from it then it would be good."

Jessica, who has two brothers William, 12, and Leroy, 10 as well as five-year-old sister Mollie, returned to her Lamlash Road home in Blackburn yesterday afternoon.

Before leaving hospital she said: "I was scared before they did it but excited because of the TV."