Health chiefs have rejected claims hospital waiting lists in the Bradford district have been massaged to meet nationally-set targets.

Dr Mehdi Hossain, chairman of the new Bradford City Primary Care Group, told a board meeting yesterday of Bradford Health Authority there was an element of "creative accountancy'' in the statistics.

A target of 10,895 patients waiting for non-urgent operations was smashed for the year to March thanks to a massive drop achieved in the final few weeks of a huge waiting list initiative.

He said 46 patients from his Killinghall Road surgery in Barkerend had been temporarily removed for three months from the lists because they had failed pre-operative assessments.

The checks are carried out by hospitals before operations are carried out to make sure patients are fit to undergo surgery.

He claimed it had helped to further reduce waiting lists which would rise again in coming months as they returned to the lists.

"That sort of thing has gone on all over Bradford which will probably make for most if not all of this reduction in waiting lists," he said.

Lesley Hill, patient treatment manager at the health authority, said patients were referred back to their GP if they were not fit for treatment only for genuine reasons.

Malcolm Poad, director of planning and marketing at Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust, today said patients were returned to their GP for clinical reasons which ensured their safety.

These included high blood pressure, infection, obesity and pregnancy which made people unsuitable for surgery.

"If they are not fit to operate on, they are not fit to operate on and it would be dangerous to do so unless they were," he said.

Health authority bosses yesterday agreed to look again at cash-strapped marriage guidance charity Relate's claim for funding.

The group in Bradford faces closure unless it finds a major new source of money and is lobbying health chiefs for cash, claiming it saves the NHS thousands of pounds thanks to its counselling services.

Health chiefs agreed to assess urgently Relate's problems by the end of next month in the light of priorities to tackle domestic violence and mental health problems.

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