In an industrial estate off the Avon Ring Road, the finishing touches are being made to a building that should ease waiting times for NHS patients.

The treatment centre in Emersons Green will carry out hip and knee replacements, and a range of other surgery and procedures, when it opens next month.

Run by UK Specialist Hospitals (UKSH), the centre will provide another option for patients who require minor orthopaedic surgery; procedures on their eyes, ears, nose and throat; gynaecology; urology; and dental surgery.

It will also provide a range of diagnostic tests, without patients having to set foot inside a traditional hospital.

Since last April, people have been given more choice about where they can go for procedures once their GP has referred them, and now low-risk patients can opt for treatment at the new centre.

While NHS hospital waiting lists have been reduced to 18 weeks and less in the last two years, the Emersons Green site will follow its model of the UKSH centre in Shepton Mallet, that opened in July 2005, seeing patients in an average of six weeks.

The first people are already being booked into the new centre, ready for its opening on November 2, and the 200 staff have started training in the building.

Many of the operations at the Emersons Green treatment centre will be carried out on a day case basis, but there are also 34 inpatient beds for the operations that require a longer recovery time.

Dr Cath Finn, medical director for UKSH, said: "Patients are selected in terms of the ailments they have. If someone is too high a risk, or is going to require high dependency care after surgery, we won't take them here."

Dr Finn said that arrangements are in place with the nearby acute hospitals, so that if something does go wrong, a patient can be transferred to a site with intensive care.

Robin Smith, UKSH South West chairman, said: "Patients will have a very good idea of what is going to happen before they arrive at surgery and will know what to expect immediately after surgery."

Mr Smith added: "What drives me is trying to make a difference for patients, and working with UKSH gives me the opportunity to take it to another level.

"We have put a lot of care into improving things for patients and I think this does it in spades."

There will be an open day for the public to look around the Emersons Green treatment centre on Saturday, from 10am to 4pm.