The BBC's John Sergeant on the scale of the change

Prime Minister Tony Blair made it a central part of his 1997 campaign - to cut the number of people on waiting lists by 100,000 before the next election.

However, although the Department of Health got extremely close earlier this year, subsequent rises have left it 30,000 shy of the target.

And with winter on the way, no-one expects the government to fulfil its election promise any time soon.

Setting priority

Shadow health secretary Liam Fox said Mr Milburn had realised the election pledge to cut waiting lists was diverting resources away from really important priorities.

Dr Liam Fox said the government had admitted failure

He said: "He's stuck with the government's pledge on waiting lists which Tony Blair is too arrogant to admit he got wrong and misled people for two years, so he is being left to try to do two different things within one budget."

The high profile meeting with heart specialists on Monday had been little more than a distraction, he said.

"It's part of the deceit and double-dealing that is now commonplace in the givernment's handling of the health sevice," he said.

Dr Liam Fox: "You can't have both waiting list cuts and better services"

"It's designed to distract our attention from the failure of the waiting list initiative and the clinical distortions that it's introducing."

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, said: "Alan Milburn cannot deflect attention away from the Government's failure to honour its early election pledge to reduce waiting lists by 100,000.

"People voted Labour in 1997 expecting promises to be kept, not forgotten about two years later," he said.

'Failure'

"New targets to combat heart disease and cancer are, of course, welcome but doctors should not be expected to perform miracles out of their existing budgets."

Nick Harvey: Changing criteria

The move was also part of Mr Milburn stamping his mark on the new job.

"The new health secretary is quietly trying to draw a line under the main policy they've pursued for the first couple of years of this Parliament," Mr Harvey said.

"Certainly he wants to be measured against different criteria."

Although Mr Milburn insists that waiting lists are still a priority - and it is highly improbable that Labour would drop the pledge altogether - the BBC's chief political correspondent John Sergeant said no-one in the government will be sorry to see them take a lower profile.