New health department figures shows shorter waits for outpatients but longer delays for hospital admittance.

In the last quarter of 2001 the number of outpatients waiting more than 13 weeks for an appointment fell by 9.8 per cent, and was down by 9.5 per cent over the year.

However, waiting times for hospital admittance increased. Between November and December, the number of patients waiting to be admitted increased by 1.8 per cent to 1,050,200, an rise of 1.5 per cent over the year.

Health minister John Hutton welcomed the news.

"The NHS is making real progress on reducing waiting times but there are genuine challenges ahead," he said.

"By April this year, patients will not be waiting longer than 15 months for treatment, already more than two-thirds of NHS trusts have met this objective. We are absolutely determined that all trusts will achieve this. Waiting is the number one concern of patients, and staff deserve praise for rising to this challenge."

However, shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox described the figures as "terrible."

"The Government can't claim to be surprised. We have warned them time and again that their incompetent handling of the care homes sector would cause severe bed-blocking. These statistics show that more and more patients are being forced to endure the suffering which goes with longer waits for treatment. Those patients increasingly recognise that Labour has completely failed to honour its Election promises on health," he said.

"So much for Labour's promises of 24 hours to save the NHS and World class health services."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Dr Evan Harris warned that the government was unlikely to meet its target of no patients waiting more than 15 months for inpatient treatment or more than six months for an outpatient appointment.

"The whole idea of waiting list targets is counterproductive. The NHS Modernisation Agency's own guidance says that clinically urgent patients should be treated before less urgent cases," said Harris.

"The government's target-obsessed approach means that less urgent, less complicated cases are treated first. Clinically urgent patients will die if their operations are postponed, even by a few weeks. Artificial political targets are no good for patients and no good for the NHS."