Scottish heart patients have been guaranteed treatment within six months - even if that means going abroad for treatment.

First Minister Jack McConnell announced treatment guarantees for patients during a speech at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

Patients with cardiac problems should not have to wait longer than six months for treatment.

If Mr McConnell remains first minister after the parliamentary elections on 1 May, he said all in-patients would be guaranteed treatment within nine months.

Patients are, and must be, at the centre of our ambitions Jack McConnell

Health boards which cannot meet the time limit would have to pay for NHS patients to have their operations elsewhere.

That could be in another part of Scotland, in a private hospital or it could mean travelling to Europe for care.

The patient will have the choice and the new guarantees will form part of a health white paper to be published later this month.

The scheme is likely to be extended to patients with other diseases.

Mr McConnell said: "Patients are, and must be, at the centre of our ambitions.

"On waiting times, we will honour our guarantees. What matters most is that those in pain or distress are treated within a reasonable time.

'Con trick'

"Step by step we are bringing down the longest waits for key surgical procedures."

The first minister said that everyone with a nine-month waiting target for surgery would have that turned into a guarantee by December.

"We will systematically assess the situation for each specialism and incrementally reduce that nine-month guarantee to six months for all by 2005 or earlier," he added.

It's a short-term fix fuelled by desperation in the face of an impending election rather than a policy Mary Scanlon Tory health spokeswoman

Scottish National Party leader John Swinney accused Mr McConnell of "trying to pull the same con trick twice".

He said Labour had promised to bring waiting lists down by at lest 10,000 at the last election.

However, he said they had risen by nearly 7,000 since the executive took power.

"He thinks the public have such a short memory that they will forget that waiting times themselves have gone up by five days under Labour," said Mr Swinney.

Tory health spokeswoman Mary Scanlon claimed the move was "a clear admission of failure".

"It's a short-term fix fuelled by desperation in the face of an impending election rather than a policy," she said.

'Radical policies'

"The health service is failing because it is a centralised, nationalised, monolithic monopoly."

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Margaret Smith said Mr McConnell had announced the "wholesale adoption" of her party's health policy.

"The Scottish Liberal Democrats have set out clear and radical policies and innovative measures to reduce waiting times, to implement health promotion and to give patients the freedom to choose appropriate treatment," she said.

"I welcome Mr McConnell's endorsement for these long-standing Liberal Democrat commitments."