A £1 billion cash boost is the government’s latest bid to drive down NHS waiting lists.

Health secretary John Reid announced the plan on Saturday as part of Labour’s long term ambition to reduce hospital waiting times.

The investment will be focused on reducing the amount of time patients have to wait to receive advanced scans such as MRI, ultrasound and CT.

"The NHS has made fantastic progress in tackling waiting times for operations," said Reid.

"Maximum waiting times have been halved from 18 months only a few years ago, to a maximum of less than 9 months now and an average of a lot less for most people.

"But we want to make services even quicker. By the end of 2008, we are determined no one will wait longer than 18 weeks for hospital treatment from the time they see their GP right through to the time of their treatment."

Reid admitted patients waiting for scans were on a "hidden waiting list" which has to be reduced.

"We know that many patients are caught in a 'bottleneck' of waiting for a scan or other diagnostic service, before they are referred for an operation," he said.

"This can be a worrying and uncertain time for patients. Today's announcement makes a big step towards tackling this."

The health secretary will talk to interested private sector providers in the next few weeks. He called for providers to be creative in how they deliver scans, such as providing them at a local doctor’s surgery or other community settings.

Reid claimed similar deals made with the private sector in the past had proved popular with patients.

"In buying extra capacity from the independent sector we will significantly increase the NHS funded diagnostic provision and increase the numbers of expert staff such as radiologists to provide these services for NHS patients," said the health secretary.

"So far by using the bulk buying power of the NHS the deals we have reached with the independent sector have proven to be popular with patients and good value for the taxpayer.

"Expanding capacity in this way allows the local NHS to quickly tap into good value, high quality clinical resources and ensure their patients are treated in state of the art facilities."