Two new multimillion pound projects to slash hospital waiting times a look set to go ahead.

Health chiefs in Winchester and Southampton have agreed initial proposals to create two linked Diagnosis and Treatment Centres (DTC), in a bid to drive down patient waiting times and meet tough new targets.

Costing over £11m, the two centres, at the Royal South Hants Hospital, Southampton and Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester, will offer fast, easy, day surgery, with no-one waiting for more than six months.

Patients should be able to book their own dates for surgery rather than relying on the pot-luck hospitals offer at present.

Another advantage will be the way the DTCs operate. With four extra theatres in Southampton and three more in Winchester, these will be set aside solely for booked operations and appointments, making cancellations a thing of the past.

It is also hoped the new facilities - to be housed in renovated buildings in Southampton and a purpose-built four-storey venue in Winchester - along with advances in technology, will allow for up to three-quarters of planned operations to be performed as day surgery.

The investment should allow annually an extra 7,400 day and intermediate surgery cases, 7,500 more endoscopies and 3,000 extra MRI scans.

Winchester's new facility, next to the existing day surgery unit at Nightingale House, will, provided planning permission is granted, also offer a further 28 short-stay beds for "23-hour" surgery that includes one overnight stay.

With the new DTC housed on the top floor of this building, plans for the rest of the space include a medical training unit, a new records facility and the proposed cancer care centre being funded through the Magpie Appeal.

Both the Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust Board and Southampton University Hospitals Board, who oversee the running of the two hospitals, have voted in favour in principle for the DTC with a final vote on the Business Case for the proposals due on February 28th.

Provided the boards again vote yes, building on the projects could begin as early as April this year, with the centres open by the end of 2004.

But board members were quick to point out two things: firstly, the centres will need to be open by then in order for the hospitals to meet the Government's deadline of no six-month plus waiting times by 2005.

Secondly, should the proposals not go through, there is no fall-back plan for meeting these targets.