NO PATIENT should be waiting longer than six months for an operation by next autumn as hospital waiting lists continue to fall, according to the chief executive of the health service.

Sir Nigel Crisp said yesterday that waiting lists were down by more than a third in six years, with 857,221 patients waiting for an operation in England in October — a drop of 12 per cent in a year. Since the peak in 1998, the total list has dropped by 455,397 — down 35 per cent.

Sir Nigel, publishing his review of the year, said that more work was needed to improve the NHS as a whole and to cut waiting times even further. Targets for next year would include tackling hospital- acquired infections and improving access to NHS dentists — two areas of particular concern to patients, he said.

He also pledged to tackle so-called “hidden” waits, so that waiting times took into account the whole patient journey.

Sir Nigel said that John Reid, the Health Secretary, had announced that by 2008 no one would have to wait more than 18 weeks from GP referral to hospital treatment, including any diagnostic tests.

Sir Nigel said that his report showed “four years of sustained improvement” since the NHS plan was published in 2000. “Extra investment and the reforms we have implemented are paying real dividends. We are making fantastic progress at reducing waiting times for treatment, both in primary and secondary care,” he said.

The waiting list hit its peak in April 1998, when there were 1,313,000 patients waiting for hospital treatment. The latest figures showed a small rise of 621 patients between September and October. The report said that further rises could be expected over winter, when the NHS was at its busiest, adding “but the downward trend is now very firmly established”.

Sir Nigel said that the number of patients waiting more than six months for treatment had fallen from 163,230 to 69,638 in the past 12 months. The Government wants to ensure that no patients wait longer than six months by the end of 2005, but Sir Nigel said that he would be encouraging the NHS to hit this target by around October.

The report showed that outpatient waiting times were also falling. The number of patients waiting more than 13 weeks for an appointment fell from 160,745 to 77,503 in 12 months — and no one should be waiting more than 13 weeks by the end of next year.

Sir Nigel said that waiting times in A&E were continuing to fall, with 96.4 per cent of patients seen and treated within four hours. Waits for GP appointments were dropping, with more than 99 per cent of patients now seen within two working days. The number of delayed discharges — so-called bed-blocking — had fallen by 36 per cent in a year, mainly because of financial penalties for social care services failing to make arrangements for patients leaving hospital.

Sir Nigel said that death rates from cancer had fallen by more than 12 per cent in the past six years, while deaths from coronary heart disease were down by 27 per cent since 1997. He added: “During the course of this year, we have had a lot of concern about cleanliness, hospital-acquired infections and dentistry. There is real attention now to giving these areas the attention they need. In a year’s time I expect to be reporting back on the progress made in this area.”

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