For most people finishing up on this operating table, romance is the last thing on their mind.

But people receiving treatment on the state of the art, £20,000 RX500 have no idea they are following in the footsteps of special agent James Bond - who used it for a far more amorous activity.

Bond, alias actor Pierce Brosnan, seduced a nurse on the table in the movie The World Is Not Enough.

Lancing firm Eschmann designed the table and it is loaned out to hospitals across Sussex when needed.

The Eschmann RX500 is a special power-driven table to help surgeons perform delicate operations with little disturbance to patients.

Eschmann spokesman Simon Pretty said: "In the film James Bond is signed off work with a shoulder problem and MI6 asked him to have a medical. He is on the table and basically he seduces a nurse on it.

"The set designer for the film was given the task of setting up a medical centre and got all the brochures and looked at various pieces of equipment.

"He decided that the RX500 was the sexiest looking operating table and thought its design fitted in with the ethos of the film.

"They got on to us and asked us to loan them the table and we were only too pleased."

Hurstwood Park hospital near Haywards Heath has now bought an identical model of the table.

Theatre sister Sue Howard said: "We have one that is the same model, although it is not the actual one that is used in the film.

"It's brilliant. When a colleague and I were looking at tables we went down to Lancing and the Bond film table was their demonstration model."

The table will help more patients be treated at Hurstwood Park. Its new operating theatres cost £1.3 million.

Until they came into use the surgeons at Hurstwood Park Neurological Centre had to share only one theatre, restricting the number of patients.

Many of the people treated there have suffered severe head injury through accidents or illness.

Sir William Wells, chairman of the South-East office of the NHS Executive, opened the new theatres and went on a tour of the life-saving unit.

The Bond connection was all the talk at the ceremony.

Sue Howard said: "We did just under 1,000 operations last year. Who knows what we can do now because that was with only one theatre. With one theatre there was not enough time to do all that was needed to be done."