The NHS has confirmed that it has hit a key target of halving the maximum waiting time for operations.

The waiting list figures were released alongside an upbeat annual report from Sir Nigel Crisp, the NHS chief executive, on Friday.

The report was welcomed by health secretary John Reid - who insisted Labour's extra investment is paying dividends for the NHS.

"I am delighted by this latest confirmation that the NHS is improving, but I'm not complacent," he said.

"Year on year the trend on both waiting lists and waiting times is clearly downwards.

"More people are having more treatment more quickly than ever before.

"This latest assessment of NHS successes is testament to the hard work and dedication of thousands of people.

"Progress is being made fast and visibly and I thank every member of the NHS for their contribution, but we have still have a long way to go."

Private provision

The figures showed that fewer than 100 patients in England are waiting longer than nine months.

By the end of the decade ministers expect that 15 per cent of all NHS operations will be contracted out to private providers of healthcare.

Facing new competition from overseas suppliers, private healthcare companies are increasingly cutting prices for NHS work.

But the opposition will examine the data to ask whether the improvements are in line with the amount of new investment.

Some reports suggest the additional money is failing to get through to the frontline.

Shadow health secretary Tim Yeo said the data raised three questions about government health policy.

"How much of the improvement is due to people leaving the NHS and paying for their own treatment? Over 650,000 people have left the NHS to pay for their own treatment since 1998," said Yeo.

"How many of these people are like the man from Wiltshire who was so desperate when he learned that his wife would have to wait eighteen months for a hysterectomy that he decided to spend his redundancy money paying for her to go private?

“How can we trust the figures when we hear the questionable means which have been used to meet it?

"The Audit Commission revealed that some patients are offered appointments on a date that managers know the patient cannot make.

"When the patient has to turn it down, they are placed at the bottom of the next list.

"We have also heard from a man in Durham who is still waiting for his second knee operation after being placed on the waiting list in September 2002. After his first operation, he was put on the bottom of the next waiting list.

"How much distortion of clinical priorities has been involved?

"The pressure on doctors to meet government targets for waiting lists sometimes forces them to ignore the needs of the most urgent cases, as the tragedy of the patients who went blind when doctors at the Bristol Eye Hospital had to see new non-urgent patients before dealing with follow up appointments.

"Far from boasting about waiting lists, ministers should be apologising."