- guardian.co.uk, Friday June 3 2005 13.51 BST
The number of patients waiting for an NHS operation in England has increased by nearly 6,000, the government admitted today.
A total of 827,300 patients were on the waiting list at the end of April - up by 5,700 since the end of March. Although there are 72,700 fewer patients waiting for operations than in April last year, the monthly rise poses questions as to whether the government can meet its targets to reduce waiting times.
The number of patients waiting more than six months for treatment also increased. At the end of April there were 45,400 people waiting over six months for an operation - up by 4,600 since March but a reduction of 38,600 since April, 2004..
Today's figures also showed that just 28 patients were waiting over nine months, of which five were waiting over a year.
The government said it remains on target to meet its pledge that no patient waits longer than six months for treatment by the end of the year.
Health minister Lord Warner said: "The NHS is making excellent progress on speeding up access to treatment - there are 72,000 fewer patients waiting than this time last year and the waiting list has been at an historic low."
But Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "These figures will be worrying for the government, as they show just what a challenge meeting the target of no one waiting over six months will be."
Last month the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, announced that private providers will carry out an extra 1.7m operations for the NHS over the next five years, at a cost of £3bn.
The move is intended to help the government meet its target of no patient waiting more than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment by 2008. The aim is to cut out so-called hidden waits for procedures such as diagnostic tests.
