Editorial Thursday 18 October 2012: More congratulations to the NHS on another excellent waiting times performance

It is worth recording that yet again, amid chaos, QIPP and the tragic loss of Simon Burns to transport, the NHS has performed brilliantly on waiting times, driving down very long waits even further.

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The splendid Dr Rob Findlay of Gooroo has swung into action, producing his usual excellent summary issued first on his essential Twitter account, and then in his HSJ blog.

Indeed, Rob spotted that his tweet that "Over-one-year waiters hits new record low at 2,052 in Aug'12 (2,966 Jul'12, 19,938 Aug'11)" had been retweeted by none other than Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt - The Bellflinger himself.

There are caveats to be had: concerns that patients in need of cateract operations and joint replacement operations are not getting onto these waiting lists.

A recent GP survey backs these reports. If these criticisms are correct, this may mean that a considerable bulge-in-waiting in waiting is being created.

We also need to remember to look at the PROMs data, to check whether the quality of the work is good.

This latest set (April-May 2012) finds a tiny year-on-year decline for groin hernia respondents: 50.3 per cent reporting an increase in general health  (50.5 per cent for 2010-11). There is a bigger YOY fall in reported health gain among 47.7 per cent of varicose vein respondents (51.6 per cent for 2010-11). And the figures for hip and knee replacement are not in yet

None of that should stop us from taking a moment to say a big thank you and well done to the thousands of clinicians, support team and managers who are delivering this performance.