NHS managers have said the health service should not be judged on the sole basis of a report highlighting deliberate misreporting of waiting times.

In a report published today, the Audit Commission said that an investigation had found evidence of waiting list manipulation in three NHS trusts.

Auditors completed spot checks at 41 trusts last year and found evidence of reporting errors in 30 per cent of performance indicators.

Responding to the report, the NHS Confederation said that any manipulation of waiting lists was "clearly unacceptable" and breached the new code of conduct for NHS managers.

"We must not condemn NHS management on the basis of the actions of a small minority of trusts," said chief executive Dr Gill Morgan.

The report found that in the majority of cases the inaccuracies in the waiting lists were unlikely to have affected the care of individual patients.