The Scottish Executive has been atttacked over waiting times

The row erupted during First Minister's Questions on Thursday as figures showed a significant fall in waits.

However, the Scottish National Party accused the Scottish Executive of "insulting the intelligence" of Scots by misrepresenting the true statistics.

The Tories said the statistics were at "an all-time high" and "much longer" than when they were in power.

First Minister's Questions was taken by Deputy First Minister and Scottish Lib Dem leader Jim Wallace in the absence of Jack McConnell, who is on an official tour of Malawi.

Far from this being good news, as the executive is trying to claim, it is yet further evidence that Scotland's patients are still getting a raw deal Nicola Sturgeon SNP

The SNP's Holyrood leader Nicola Sturgeon was accused of "scaremongering" by Mr Wallace after her initial accusation that the executive massaged the figures for the NHS in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon instead highlighted the median waiting time numbers which she said showed "yet another dramatic increase" in waiting times.

"Far from this being good news, as the executive is trying to claim, it is yet further evidence that Scotland's patients are still getting a raw deal," said Ms Sturgeon.

Mr Wallace ignored her claim and responded: "What matters is people - and what matters is trying to get the people who have been waiting longest off the waiting list.

"Sixty thousand fewer people are waiting for an outpatient appointment than there were six months ago - that is quite a staggering achievement."

Jim Wallace accused the SNP of 'scaremongering'

However, Ms Sturgeon would not be deterred and said the executive's own statisticians had described the median as "the most robust measurement of performance".

"In the last quarter the median wait for inpatients was 42 days - it is now 47 days," she said.

"For outpatients, it was 56 days - it is now 62 days.

"And in the last quarter, only 16% of outpatients had to wait more than six months for an appointment.

"Now 20% - one in five of all outpatients - have to wait more than six months for an appointment.

"Isn't it the case that to try to paint that record as a success is an insult to the intelligence of thousands of patients in Scotland?"

Mr Wallace said: "All we ever hear from Nicola Sturgeon are things that try to run Scotland down."

'Lamentable' affair

Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie then took up the attack and told Mr Wallace the median wait in 1997, when his party was in government, was 34 days while today it stood at 62 days, while for inpatients it was also 34 days compared to the current 47 days.

"There are 22,000 more people languishing on the waiting lists," he added. "This is a record of which he can hardly be proud.

"He and his Liberal Democrat colleagues are as much to blame as Labour for this lamentable state of affairs."

The deputy first minister said: "It may be that Mr McLetchie's point of view is that we shouldn't be treating those who've been waiting the longest, but that's not our priority.

"And I'm happy as a Liberal Democrat, along with my party and the Labour Party and the first minister, to stand by a record which today shows we have the lowest-ever number of inpatients waiting for over six months."

Mr McLetchie added that the executive was now adopting "Tory solutions" to treat patients faster, including greater use of private treatment centres for NHS-funded patients.