Embarrassed Government watchdog officials have admitted getting figures wrong in a report which casts Bradford health services in a bad light.

The report on waiting times for the city's National Health Service patients is published today and will be presented to Parliament by head of the National Audit Office, Sir John Bourn.

A breakdown of waiting times for in-patients appears to show Bradford Health Authority is the worst in the Northern and Yorkshire region with 22.3 people per 1,000 in the district waiting for treatment.

However, an error in the city's population figure throws out all the report's calculations and the authority has actually done better than it suggests.

A spokesman for the National Audit Office - an independent body which examines the efficiency of Government departments - admitted the error.

"The population figure reads 438 but it should be 483. It means that Bradford is fourth, rather than first on that particular chart," he said.

"But in our defence the figure we are interested in, and the one we are pointing people to, is the one which shows how many people are waiting six months or more for treatment."

On March 31 Bradford Health Authority had 9,700 people waiting for in-patient treatment. Of these 20.1 per cent had waited six or more months.

This figure places Bradford seventh out of the 13 Northern and Yorkshire health authorities. Neighbouring authority Calderdale and Kirklees comes out best with just 13 per cent of patients waiting six months or more for in-patient treatment.

The report highlights the need for wider implementation of good practice to manage and reduce waiting lists and times in the NHS in England.

In March there were 42,000 patients who had been waiting more than a year for admission to hospital .