MORE patients are waiting for admission at North-East hospitals than three years ago, according to Tory claims.

In figures released by the Conservatives, five North-East hospital trusts had more patients waiting at the end of March compared with December 2000. The North-East and North Yorkshire hospitals were among 53 trusts in England which had more waiting.

But the Government said that the NHS was treating more patients and the length of time people had to wait for operations was coming down.

The region's largest increase was in the Scarborough and North-East Yorkshire NHS Trust where those waiting rose by 69 per cent in March, from 2,407 to 4,073.

At North Durham Health Care - now part of the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust - numbers rose from 4,051 to 4,283, a six per cent increase.

York Health Services and City Hospital Sunderland also saw six per cent rises between December 2000 and last March, while the large Newcastle Hospitals Trust saw a two per cent rise in the number of patients waiting for in-patient treatment.

Of the 186 hospital trusts in England, 53 had more waiting to be admitted for an operation this year than in 2000.

Shadow health spokesman Chris Grayling said: "Nothing the Government does can be taken at face value."

Chris Coombs, spokesman for Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust, said: "We have included more groups of patients in the figures that we didn't include before, such as patients undergoing investigation."

Julie Oliver, for County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust, said: "We are getting more referrals but we are also cutting our waiting lists. At the end of March we had no patients waiting more than 12 months."

Richard Barker, of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We have 9,000 more admissions a year compared to what we had in 2000. Our waiting list has also been reduced by five per cent."