One company charges £4,995 for a gastric bypass and £1,500 for liposuction, procedures that cost around £11,000 and £5,000 respectively in the UK.

While private hospital patients in Britain could expect to pay £10,000 for a total knee replacement and £9,000 for a full hip replacement, in Belgium they could get the operations for £6,500 and £5,600.

Shortages in egg and sperm donations, exacerbated by new laws removing the right to anonymity for donors in Britain coupled with increasing demand for treatment, are driving a boom in so-called "fertility tourism".

Clinics in the Caribbean, America, Ukraine and Poland are targeting couples through the internet and support groups but Spain is the most popular destination.

While Spanish law prohibits the buying of eggs, large clinics guarantee a steady supply of eggs by "compensating" donors to the tune of £600-£700 a time. British donors are only paid expenses.

Since the change in the law on donor anonymity a year ago, many Spanish clinics have recruited English-speaking staff to cope with demand from British patients, said to have jumped by 50-100 per cent.

Given the excellent reputation of its private hospitals, India has become a global health destination. Its health care sector has been growing by 30 per cent per year and is predicted to be worth £1.2 billion by 2012.

Last year, Briton George Marshall was one of a growing number who went there for an operation, paying £4,800 including flights for a heart bypass procedure, rather than waiting six months for NHS treatment or paying £19,000 to go private here.

A number of Indian companies provide an airport-to-hospital bed service for a wide range of non-emergency operations, as well as dental treatments and cosmetic surgery. Some of the trips combine treatment with recreation, such as trips to the Taj Mahal or a yoga break.

Prices can be less than half those of private dental costs in the UK. Many providers also take care of travel and accommodation arrangements, and low cost airlines fly to Budapest. A porcelain crown costs around £180, compared with £500 from a private UK dentist. Hungarian dentists charge £30 for extracting a tooth - a third of the cost here. Most reports suggest the quality of care and treatment are high and that dentists in Hungary are generally highly experienced.

It has been on the map as a leader in medicine since the first human heart transplant was performed in Cape Town in 1967 and standards for cosmetic surgery in South Africa are world renowned.

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