An £8 million hospital scheme to create new wards and theatres will slash waiting times for thousands of patients.

Two extra wards and two theatres will be created at Bradford Royal Informary - adding 56 beds - to ease pressure on the over-stretched hospital.

The extra space - coupled with more doctors and nurses - means that 6,000 extra in-patients will be treated each year. At present BRI and St Luke's have 1,200 beds.

Hospital bosses plan to blitz waiting lists in specialities such as hip and knee replacements, which will account for a third of the extra operations. Other priority areas are general and plastic surgery, ear, nose and throat surgery, urology, gynaecology, oral surgery and pain management.

David Jackson, chief executive of Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital, said the development was a major step for health care in Bradford.

"Effectively, this will form the first stage of our ambitious plans to develop both of our hospital sites and modernise the way we provide services to the community we serve," he said.

The trust has approval for a £116 million package of improvements to be funded by the Government's Private Finance Initiative. This includes demolishing outdated facilities to make way for modern, purpose-built accommodation, at both BRI and St Luke's Hospital.

But that development will not happen until at least 2007/2008 and BRI is already full and struggling to cope with demand.

Tough Government waiting list targets are only being hit because staff are working through weekends and in the evening.

The new buildings will ease the pressure, along with additional doctors and nurses, who are being appointed to staff the unit.

The two-storey building, which has a 60 year life span, will be manufactured off-site in York before being erected on land at BRI and linked to the main hospital by a corridor.

Planning permission is already in place and the building - funded with £4 million from West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority and £3.9million from the trust's capital programme - could be in place by the end of the year.

"It will bring immediate benefit to thousands of patients who are waiting for surgery, in particular those waiting for joint replacements, such as hips and knees, who will form about one-third of the extra operations," said Mr Jackson.

"The new unit will create much needed capacity and flexibility to enable us to meet tough waiting list targets by 2005, which will see the maximum wait for an operation reduced to six months, half of what it is now."

In August last year the Telegraph & Argus reported how 187 patients needing joints replaced were treated in private hospitals to ensure waiting list targets - no patients waiting more than 12 months - were met in the previous year.

The new development means quicker treatment for 8,592 patients currently waiting for inpatient treatment at Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust. Of these 4,510 were waiting up to three months, 2,463 between three to six months, 1,338 between six to nine months and 281 were waiting between nine and 12 months. No one is waiting more than 12 months.

One of the new wards will be used to house patients from other wards while a new £1 million bedside TV and telephone system - Patientline - is installed. Each bed in BRI and St Luke's will have its own telephone and TV and family will be able to leave messages on the patient's personal answer machine, while patients will have access to satellite and terrestrial TV and radio, the Internet and use e-mail.

If the trust wishes to develop the unit even further it has the capacity to be expanded to house three wards and six operating theatres.

Jamil Rehman, chief officer at Bradford Community Health Council, said they had received no recent complaints from patients about long waits for hip and knee operations, but he was in favour of money being spent to cut waiting lists.