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From July 2002 all patients who have been waiting for more than six months for heart surgery will be offered the choice of treatment at another NHS hospital in the private sector or even abroad Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced today. This is the next step in the Government's drive to build a fairer, faster and patient centred NHS through a sustained programme of investment and reform.

This initiative for heart surgery marks the start of a wider proposal to improve patient choice and speed up treatment across the NHS. Other pilots which will be developed in due course. Ultimately the intention is that by 2005 all patients will be able to book a convenient time and place for their treatment at the point they are referred to hospital by a GP.

The new scheme was unveiled as Mr Milburn announced details of how next year's £53.4 billion NHS budget will be distributed among health authorities. This represents an average 9.9% increase in funds for English health authorities, the biggest average rise for a decade.

In addition to funding the choice scheme, the key priorities for the cash this year are:

This will be accompanied by a substantial increase in the quality and quantity of information available to patients through the Internet and NHS Direct, together with the provision of a network of specialist advisers to help them choose the best option to suit their needs.

Mr Milburn said:

"These reforms are about putting the patients first. Our aim must be to create a more decentralised more diverse, more responsive health service, capable of offering patients better services and greater choice.

"Today, we are publishing proposals that will for the first time give patients an explicit choice over where they are treated in the NHS. The investment and reforms we are making mean that by 2005 every patient needing hospital treatment will be helped by their GP to choose not just the date but the location of that treatment. The resources we now have available mean that we can make a start next year to introduce this new system whereby patients choose the hospital rather than hospitals choosing the patient.

"We will start with patients who have been waiting longest for treatment and those with the most serious conditions. Today thousands of patients have been waiting for a heart operation for more than 6 months. Waiting times are falling but they are still too long.

"From the middle of next year, every patient in England who has waited for a heart operation for six months will be able to choose between hospitals, whether in the public sector, the private sector, in this country or abroad, which can do the operation more quickly. The choice will be theirs.

"Many patients may choose not to exercise a choice. Many will prefer to wait at their local hospital. Some will prefer to travel to get faster treatment. But the point is this. It will for the first time be the patient's choice. And that choice will no longer be between waiting longer for treatment or paying for treatment.

"NHS principles are the right principles for Britain. Free at the point of use, paid for through general taxation. Treatment according to need not ability to pay.

"A service where the investment and the reforms we are making deliver quicker, higher quality care for millions of NHS patients. The resources I have announced today will mark a further step towards a better faster health service. A National Health Service for all the people of our country"

We know that patients want choice because they tell us so. Research carried out for the Department of Health suggests that choice will be extremely popular with the public, with over half of patients with coronary heart disease stating they are prepared to go elsewhere for treatment.