NHS patients in England will be able to choose where they receive hospital treatment by 2005.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn told the Labour Party conference that the move would ensure patients are "put first".

A national pilot scheme has already enabled 400 heart patients to switch to hospitals where they will be operated on more quickly.

Rather than hospitals choosing the patients we need patients to be able to choose hospitals Health Secretary Alan Milburn

And in London an initiative was announced this week to provide faster treatment for patients who have been waiting for more than six months for cataract surgery.

That scheme aims to fund nearly 3,500 cataract operations before March 2003.

The government is expected to extend similar projects across the country until all NHS patients are offered some choice.

Patient power

Mr Milburn said: "If we are going to have genuinely a health service that puts patients first, then patients are going to have to have more power.

"I think that means they will have to have more choice - rather than hospitals choosing the patients we need patients to be able to choose hospitals.

"These are big changes. They are going to be difficult and they are going to take time."

Under the current pilot schemes, patients who have been waiting more than six months for an operation are offered the choice of travelling to another NHS hospital with more capacity for treatment.

Travel expenses for both themselves and a relative are paid as are hotel expenses for the family member.

There have been fears that long distance travel may harm patients. But the Department of Health insists that there is no evidence that patients' health is put at risk.

Critics have suggested that the NHS is so overstretched that it will be almost impossible to find hospitals with extra capacity.

Shadow Health SecretaryDr Liam Fox said: "Despite all the hype in advance of the Health Secretary's appearance, there is little to comfort patients that they'll be able to escape from the current straitjacket placed upon them on the way the NHS is currently run.

"Yet again the hopes of many have been raised to gain press headlines, only to be cruelly dashed immediately afterwards."

Foundation trusts

Mr Milburn also reiterated his commitment to giving top rated NHS hospitals more freedom from government control.

He said the so-called foundation trusts were central to plans to create a "successful health service".

The first foundation trusts are expected to come on stream next year.

They will be able to opt-out of government guidelines and set their financial and clinical priorities. They may also be able to increase pay for staff.

Mr Milburn told the conference the hospitals would remain part of the NHS.

"We have to get the power and resources onto the front line," he said. "That is why we have NHS foundation hospitals around the corner - part of the NHS, NHS hospitals delivering NHS principles to NHS patients but not run by me, run by the local community and giving a greater say to staff."

Foundation hospitals have been criticised by unions and former health secretary Frank Dobson.

There have also been reports that Chancellor Gordon Brown is opposed to the policy because of fears over how NHS budgets will be controlled.