As the government reveals new data on waiting lists the Tories have accused ministers of blatant electioneering ahead of May's council polls.

The claim came as the Department of Health said the number of patients waiting over a year for a hospital bed had fallen by 29 per cent between January and February this year.

Ministers also claimed the total number of patients on waiting lists had been reduced by 3.5 per cent in the same period.

Just seven people in England had had to wait more than 15 months for treatment, the government declared.

But Tory health spokesman Liam Fox said the government was manipulating the figures to make sure targets were met.

He said the local authority elections in May were higher in Labour's priorities than patient care.

Up to 63 patients on waiting lists had been left out of the statistics to ensure they met manifesto targets, he claimed.

"The government yet again refuses to let anything stand in the way of meeting their waiting list targets," he said.

"They obviously don't care about the suffering which their obsession causes patients, or the further mockery which it makes of their statistics.

"Ministers claim to have hit their target. Yet in the same breath they admit that 63 patients have waited more than 12 months.

"It is not enough to say that, since the patients refused to go where ministers wanted them sent, all of a sudden they can be ignored.

"The government's target did not come with conditions or exceptions. They have missed it, and should just admit that."

Dr Fox asked whether voters trusted Labour to be honest about their own performance and linked the timing of the announcement with the local election campaign.

"At the best of times, ministers' insistence that their unaudited figures show great improvements would be simply laughable - they have been caught out time and again fiddling official figures," he said.

"So who knows what they will have done to make these unofficial ones appear right, particularly in the run-up to the local elections?"

The attack came as it emerged that the number of patients paying for private hospital treatment had tripled under Labour.

Dr Fox said the data from the Independent Healthcare Association demonstrated the "hypocrisy and incompetence" of government health policy.

The figures showed a three-fold increase in the number of people opting for private practice.

The Tories claimed this revealed "serious failings" in the bid to cut waiting lists.

Analysts Laing and Buisson also released a study showing a 7.6 per cent rise in NHS income from the treatment of private patients.

Dr Fox said that the reports raised questions over the Department of Health's strategy and priorities in dealing with waiting lists.

"Despite the rhetoric, and the massive increase in NHS spending, ministers would rather force people out of the NHS to pay for treatment from their own pockets than spend state funds in private hospitals," he said.

"Four times more patients are paying out of their savings for private treatment than the government is prepared to fund through the NHS to receive care in the private sector.

"The government claims that its priority is for NHS hospitals to cut waiting lists.

"Yet while the number waiting is virtually static, it seems those hospitals are treating more patients privately.

"Labour health policy has become a toxic mixture of hypocrisy and incompetence."