Thousands more NHS patients could be sent abroad for treatment following successful trials in Germany and France, according to reports.

One hundred and ninety people have had treatment abroad as part of the government's pilot scheme.

The Independent on Sunday says senior health officials are so pleased with the scheme that the project will be extended across the country.

The NHS commissioner in charge of treating patients abroad, Peter Huntley told the paper the scheme was now an important method for reducing waiting lists.

Backlog

In January this year, nine people from Ashford in Kent travelled to the La Louviere clinic in Lille, France, for cataract and joint operations in the first use of continental hospitals to provide NHS care.

Other schemes have been introduced where heart patients in England who have waited more than six months can have the choice of where they are treated.

There are around one million people waiting for operations on the NHS.

The government has promised to clear the backlog of 200,000 people who have been waiting at least six months.

The Independent on Sunday says that the success of the pilot project means health authorities will be able to send patients abroad to reduce waiting lists for operations such as orthopaedic and eye surgery.

It says the pilot study evaluation by the director of the York Health Economics Consortium, Dr Peter West, will be published "imminently".

Foreign doctors

The paper says the report suggests there is "no reason to put the policy of sending patients abroad into reverse".

The study did not consider costs but it is believed that sending patients to France was more cost effective than treatment at private UK hospitals.

But the government has been keen to play down treatment abroad.

Instead, Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced in May that surgeons from overseas would be brought into the NHS to help increase capacity and cut waiting times.

The Royal College of Surgeons condemned the proposals as a "short-term fix" that could compromise standards, and introduce "third world medicine" to the UK.

A recent Mori poll of 2,000 people for the British Medical Association suggested most patients would be happy to be treated abroad or in the private sector.