In less than an week Maidstone will find out if it is getting an £80 million private hospital near Newnham Court.

Plans to build the Kent Institute for Medicine and Surgery near junction seven of the M20 date back to 2006.

Planning permission was granted in 2008 and building work on the hospital, which will offer cardio, thoracic, liver and neuro surgery, stroke rehabilitation and cancer treatments, was due to start in Autumn 2010.

Due to the recession, a bank and then a health care company withdrew their financial support.

Hospital director Andrew Frost, said: “We had hoped that we would be built and open by now. While everything remains on track, it has been a victim of the credit crunch, which made it difficult in terms of borrowing.”

A new deal is now in the pipeline.

Mr Frost said: "“Nothing is certain until financial close on the deal, which will be reached on [Friday] November 25. While we are keeping everything crossed for that date, we are keen not to get people’s hopes up, in case something happens.”

Millions have already been spent getting the land ready for building work, but the delay has seen the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust steal a march on the private health market by launching MTW Healthcare, which would see paying patients treated at a private ward at the new Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury.