Wales is falling behind England in key areas like waiting lists

Both Tony Blair and Conservative leader Michael Howard have called for more choice within the NHS.

But Mr Morgan says both the geography and its social values mean Wales need not be given the same consumer choice in health.

The first minister outlined his idea of 'choice' in the public sector in a speech in Cardiff on Thursday.

The Welsh assembly leader says Tony Blair in outlining the right of patients to have choice in their health care is having to respond to a threat from the private sector.

"If you're going to have public service delivery - the public service delivery itself will provide the choice you would normally get in the private sector.

Our geography does not encourage this social model, and I don't think our values encourage this model either Rhodri Morgan

Mr Morgan says the same level of consumer choice does not apply to Wales.

"It's not really relevant in Wales whether you're talking about health or education," said Mr Morgan.

"Our geography does not encourage this social model, and I don't think our values encourage this model either".

Mr Morgan believes that in Wales there is no need to get the public services to provide choice in the way supermarkets offer choice to customers buying groceries.

Although Wales has introduced other measures like reducing prescription charges by a pound from October it is falling behind England in key areas like waiting times for which UK Health Minister John Reid is unveiling new targets on Thursday.

Rhodri Morgan says consumer choice is not relevant for Wales

The assembly government has also refused to follow England's example and introduce foundation hospitals.

Independent financial consultant Derek Wanless in a report almost a year ago commissioned by the assembly government called for services in Wales to modernise or risk being overwhelmed.

One patient, Terence Lambell, needed a new hip, but after waiting more than three years for a replacement at Wrexham Maelor Hospital he travelled to France for a private operation, which cost him �4,000.

He believed he would have been treated differently if he had lived in England.

"To be reduced to not being able to get about at all is dreadful," said Mr Lambell. "It's degrading... absolutely degrading."

Mr Lambell criticised Mr Morgan and said he would have preferred to go to England for his operation on the NHS.

But Mr Morgan insisted that his approach was to improve standards in health across the board, and that improvements would be felt in the Welsh NHS within a matter of months.

"It isn't about philosophy. It's about capacity and we're going to do it within months.

However Jon Owen Jones, a former health minister in the Welsh Office, said while he thought a degree of choice for patients in choosing their GP or hospital was a good thing, "you can't offer choice unless you've got sufficient capacity to allow it".

"We haven't been able to develop the same sort of efficient capacity that England has.

Specialist centres

"Really, we need to implement the Wanless report very, very quickly.

In particular, Mr Jones, the MP for Cardiff Central, said he would like to see specialist treatment centres which had been extremely successful in driving down waiting times in England set up in Wales.

Tory leader in the assembly, Nick Bourne, said " Rhodri Morgan's failed plans for the Welsh NHS have created a two-tier health service in Britain".

"Conservatives in Wales would offer patients choice ans ensure they are treated quickly, paid for from public funds, using space capacity in the NHS in the private sector".

Political commentators say the difference in approach on health between Wales and England mirrors the leaders' differing standpoints.

Russell Deacon, a lecturer at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff said the difference was "tremendously driven by ideology".