Hospital waiting times 'under-recorded by three weeks'

The average waiting time for patients receiving treatment in hospital "is creeping up" but remains within their targets, the NHS Confederation's chief operating officer has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Watch: Hunt says hospitals 'not deliberately' hiding waiting time figures

The health secretary defended hospitals against mounting criticism they were deliberately under-reporting the amount of time patients were waiting for an operation.

Jeremy Hunt told Daybreak the National Audit Office talked about "inconsistencies" in figures, and were "very careful not to say that hospitals were deliberately misrepresenting" waiting times.

Bill McCarthy, NHS England's director of policy and strategy, said:

The National Audit Office report reviewed 650 orthopaedic patient waiting times across seven hospital trusts.

"More than half of these were not supported by documented evidence or were incorrectly recorded," it said.

In 281 cases, waiting times had been correctly recorded and were supported by documented evidence.

But in 202 cases, waiting times were not supported by enough evidence to say whether they had been correctly recorded.

And in a further 167 cases, there was "evidence of at least one error, leading to under and over-recording of waiting time".

"There was an overall under-recording of three weeks (mean) per patient," it concluded.

Some hospitals are failing to accurately monitor how long thousands of their patients are waiting for treatment, a report has found.

Research by the National Audit Office (NAO) discovered trusts in England were often "mis-recording" data, with some saying either patients waited less time than they did for treatment, or longer.

NHS targets say 90% of admitted hospital patients should start their treatment within 18 weeks.

Of those patients who do not need admitting to hospital, 95% should be seen within 18 weeks of referral by their GP.