Government faces 'cooking the books' claims

The Government risked accusations that it was "cooking the books" on public services today after a stroke of the pen seemed to transform NHS productivity overnight.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has given in to ministers' demands to change the way figures are calculated for the health service, the Evening Standard has learned.

Tony Blair and Health Secretary John Reid called for a review of the statistics after figures last year showed efficiency in the NHS had fallen since Labour came to power, despite billions of pounds extra being pumped into services.

The independent review is due to be published later this month, but the ONS has now pre-empted the outcome by changing its measurements.

New figures show that, following the intervention of chief statistician Len Cook, for some years the "output" of the NHS as a proportion of the nation's income has doubled.

Output growth has been revised upwards from 1.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent for 2001 and from 2.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent for 2002 and 2003.

The changes mean the Government will be able to claim real results from its extra spending on the NHS.

Instead of official figures showing falling productivity of 15-20 per cent since 1997, they may now show small efficiency increases.

The revisions also account for much of the rise in GDP growth hailed by the Government yesterday.

A Department of Health spokesman today defended the changes to the statistics - and said more would follow. "The new output offers a considerable improvement over the previous measure," he said.

"But the new measure still has its problems. For example, it fails to take into account improvements in quality in the NHS. Over the next six months, the review is going to work on identifying further improvements."

Mr Blair has long been frustrated that official figures failed to take into account the benefits to patients of new services. Leaked memos last month showed ministers were determined act to prove they are getting value for money from the extra cash spent.

All operations, from cheap varicose vein replacements to expensive heart transplants, have for years been treated the same when it came to their contribution to national income. Under the changes, the benefits as well as the cost of operations will be measured.

The impact of the NHS Direct phone service and new walk-in centres will also be included for the first time.

But shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin said: "The Government has a terrible problem with productivity in the health service - and now the productivity figures change.

"Why has this happened before the independent commission, which was meant to be looking into all this, has got anywhere near reporting?"

Mr Cook admitted he was acting before the report by academic Sir Tony Atkinson had been published.

But he decided not to wait because the review had thrown up good ways of improving the quality of statistics.