Last year, the Department of Health announced that "only" just over 57,000 operations had been cancelled last year.

Then it transpired that this figure only related to those people who had operations cancelled within 24 hours of the op.

But now the "real" figure has been revealed.

The Conservatives, using the Freedom of Information legislation, has extracted the information that more than 100,000 operations have been cancelled over the past year.

Here's another example of the devious spin used to paint a rosier picture than is the case.

It's typical of the deviousness of this government over the past decade.

The cancellations have, in the main, been caused by bed shortages or staff problems and shows that although the government would like to make us think that everything in NHS land is rosey, the fact is that it isn't.

A cancelled operation is such bad news because it means that a patient's condition can get worse.

I wish politicians would start telling us how things are rather than how they would like it to be.
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