Supporters say it will lead to a better service for patients, but health service unions and some surgeons are less convinced.

"This is another fast-track solution with the private sector which is actually going to create more problems than it is going to provide solutions.

Capacity in the NHS is going to wither Karen Jennings

"We are going to see large, private-vested global interests coming into the NHS, who are going to be given five year contracts, and who are going to be able to charge more than the NHS.

"When this was originally mooted we were told that this was going to be totally new capacity which would not draw staff away from the NHS.

"We now hear that staff are going to be possibly seconded into the units, or indeed that they can recruit away from the NHS which means that the capacity in the NHS is going to wither.

"This will also decrease the knowledge and skills within the NHS.

"Everybody wants to see people treated more quickly, and there is a way of doing that.

"We know from an Audit Commission report that UK operating departments are not all running to full capacity, they are not all running efficiently.

"What we need is for the government to be setting out a framework for our NHS operating departments to be running to full capacity.

"That way we are getting value for money, we are ensuring that the public sector within the NHS continues to grow and flourish, and that we are not sending tax payers money into global vested interests which are doing nothing for this country."

John Reid, Health Secretary:

"Not only will we not be poaching NHS staff, it is legally prohibited under the contracts to do that.

"However, in certain cases the local NHS have requested that they should transfer some of the routine operational work that at present is putting capacity strains on their system to the new centre.

Everybody wins in this John Reid

"And where that is being done, they have requested that some of their staff should be able to go to the new treatment centre and do that, mainly part-time for a limited period.

"At the moment if you are waiting for a three-hour operation on your hip it is not a complicated operation, but if you are just about to go in after waiting months - and we want to reduce that - and there is an emergency that comes up in the hospital, then your operation is cancelled and you can go back to waiting months.

"Now all of those routine operations will be done in the treatment centres. There will be 250,000 more operations, they will done more quickly, there will be less chance of cancellation for the patients, and there will be a better service. Everybody wins in this.

"In Birmingham people were previously waiting nine to 15 months for minor operations. They are now getting them in six weeks because we have an NHS treatment centre that is not only adding capacity, but changing and reforming the system so that we don't interrupt constantly the routine operations by the emergency operations.

"The money that will be paid per operation for these new treatment centres, will be the same as the tariff paid to the NHS.

"Just because some trade union leaders have a political objection to buying treatment from the voluntary or independent sector, and some surgeons don't like it because it reduces the waiting lists, and therefore reduces demand for private practice, I'm not going to leave people in pain."