A political row has erupted over the latest figures on waiting times and waiting lists for Scotland's hospitals.

The Scottish Executive said it has met its target of reducing waiting lists to under 75,000 after they fell by 11% in three months.

It also said that no patient was waiting longer than 12 months for treatment at the end of March, and pointed to a 6% reduction in the number waiting longer than six months.

This drive to tackle unacceptably long waits has been central to the new co-ordinated approach

Malcolm Chisholm Health Minister

However, the Scottish National Party said that waiting times had increased since Labour came to power.

The party's health spokeswoman Nicola Sturgeon said that Labour had made waiting times the test of its success - and claimed it had "clearly failed".

Last year the Scottish Executive said that reducing waiting times rather than waiting lists would be the health service's main priority.

Earlier this year a new body set up to slot patients into spare beds started work.

The efforts of the National Waiting Times Unit have led to a significant fall in the length of the country's waiting lists.

Hospital treatment

The Scottish Executive said that a reduction of 8,600 between December and March left the waiting list for in-patient and day case treatment standing at less than 72,000.

However, many of those treated had been waiting for so long that when their details were recorded it emerged that waiting times were actually much higher than statistics had previously shown.

The figures announced on Thursday suggested that patients had actually been waiting longer for hospital treatment than at any time since records began.

Nicola Sturgeon: "They have clearly failed"

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said: "Today's figures show that many of those treated in the last three months have been those waiting longer for treatment.

"This drive to tackle unacceptably long waits has been central to the new co-ordinated approach being driven by the National Waiting Times Unit and delivered by the service.

"It is a great achievement for our staff that no patient was waiting more than 12 months at the end of March this year - and that the number waiting over six months also fell compared with a year ago."

Mr Chisholm commended staff for meeting the waiting list target.

But he stressed: "We are now directing all our focus and efforts to bring waiting times down.

"That is what matters most to patients - and improving the patient's experience must be at the heart of everything we do in the NHS."

Fewer patients

He also promised that further waiting times targets would be set before the end of the current parliamentary session.

However, Ms Sturgeon said waiting times in Scotland had increased by a week since Labour came to power in 1999 - even though the number of patients treated each quarter had fallen by more than 10,000.

"The NHS is taking longer to treat people and is seeing fewer patients," she said.

"Jack McConnell personally made waiting times the key indicator of the health of the NHS yet patients are now waiting a week longer than when Labour took power in 1999.

"He made waiting times the test of their success and they have clearly failed.

Scottish Tory health spokeswoman Mary Scanlon said: "Today's figures are an appalling indictment of the way that Labour and the Liberal Democrats continue to mismanage and run down our health service.

"The only things they have delivered are fewer beds, fewer nurses, more bed-blocking, longer waiting lists, longer waiting times, more hospital-acquired infections, and staff and patient morale at an all-time low."