The number of patients waiting to be admitted to Oxfordshire's major hospitals is at last below target.

Figures for the John Radcliffe, the Churchill and the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, and the Horton Hospital at Banbury are now below the year-end goal of 8,204.

Last summer, the number of inpatients on the waiting list was more than 600 above the target figure.

But as Oxford Radcliffe Hospital NHS Trust directors congratulated themselves, they were forced to launch into a further Government initiative to lower outpatient waiting lists.

Nursing director Tricia Hart said the number of patients waiting to see consultants in opthalmology, plastic surgery, dermatology and gynaecology would have to be cut by 55 per cent. Cardiology would have to fall by 30 per cent and other outpatient services would have to drop by ten per cent to be on target at the end of the 2000-2001 period.

She added that a number of initiatives would be used to make the strategy a success, including a clampdown on patients not turning up for appointments.

Nationally, more than 15 per cent of consultations are lost because patients do not attend.

The practice is so common that many hospitals make more appointments than is physically possible for each working day relying on the non-attendees to reduce daily numbers.