John Reid has set out new plans to reform the National Health Service.

In a Commons statement on the government's new five-year NHS plan, the health secretary confirmed that he will look to the private sector in order to reduce maximum waiting times to just three months.

Under the radical plan, the NHS could buy up to one million operations a year from commercial healthcare firms.

By 2008 Reid expects no patient to wait over 18 weeks for treatment - with an average waiting time of nine weeks.

Writing in the FT, Nicholas Timmins suggests that the future of the NHS depends on securing lower costs from private providers.