The facility at Southmead Hospital will help reduce waiting times for patients at Bristol NHS Group partners, North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.

Patients will be seen at the elective centre later this summer, slightly behind schedule, with the first operations a month later.

Bristol NHS Group chief executive, Maria Kane, said: ‘This centre is a fantastic facility that is going to benefit people across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and help us carry out more operations sooner.

‘As we have seen the centre take shape we have also built our plans to become a hospital group and this project demonstrates just what we can achieve by working together to benefit our patients.'

The centre has four operating theatres, 12 medirooms and 40 inpatient beds and X-ray facilities.