The numbers on the waiting list rose

A sharp rise in the numbers waiting more than a year for operations in this month's figures reverses a downward trend over recent months.

On Friday, the government gave details of an extra �50m targeted at cutting waits for orthopaedic operations such as hip replacements.

However, there were 134 people who had been waiting longer than a year for all types of operation at the end of April - a rise of more than 80% on last month's figures.

A key government target was to eliminate 12-month waiting by the beginning of April, and 73 were still in this position at this date.

Many of these, said ministers, were waiting at just one hospital - and an investigation was promised.

Seasonal 'blip'

The Department of Health said the latest increases were "seasonal", and pointed out that the overall waiting list total, up 0.9% this month, was still the second-lowest for a decade.

The next target for the NHS is to make sure no-one waits more than six months for an operation by the end of 2005.

Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "Only a day after the Audit Commission's critical report on the NHS, waiting times have again deteriorated.

"It is now quite clear that Labour's failure to undertake radical reform means that more taxpayers' money will continue to be wasted and Britain's standards of health care will lag further behind the rest of Europe's."

'On course'

However, Health Secretary Alan Milburn, releasing details of the �50m orthopaedics plan on Friday, insisted that patients were beginning to see the results of extra investment in the NHS.

He said: "Waiting times had been rising for decades in the NHS. They are now coming down.

"There is a long way to go, but the health service is on course to deliver the NHS Plan, so that by 2005 no-one should have to wait longer than six months for an operation.

"We are now starting to see real improvements across the board."