The government has been warned that Whitehall target-setting is harming patient care in accident and emergency departments.

The British Medical Association report, out today, also suggests official figures cannot be trusted as waiting list data have been manipulated.

Half of the doctors who replied to the BMA's survey said patients were moved to inappropriate wards to get them out of the accident department and 40 per cent said patients were discharged before they were "adequately assessed or stabilised".

Some 27 per cent said that "care of the seriously ill or injured was compromised because of the pressure to meet the four-hour target".

John Hutton, the health minister, said the report gave a "distorted" account of accident and emergency departments.