Rise in people waiting for NHS treatment for fourth month in a row

The number of people waiting for treatment by the NHS in Wales has risen for the fourth consecutive month, according to new statistics.

The figures show there were just under 709,700 cases waiting for planned treatments in July.

Of these, just over 4,700 had been waiting two years or more - a 15% rise over the course of a month and 82% higher than the position at the end March.

The Welsh government's health minister has described the figures as disappointing with performance "not where we want it to be".

"The inherited waiting list backlog remains too high, and tackling it remains our top priority," Mabon ap Gwynfor said.

He said the government was putting measures in place that would ensure nobody was waiting more than two years for treatment.

Earlier this month he outlined how £145m of extra funding to shrink waiting lists and speed up treatments would be spent.

Because of a lag of around seven weeks between collecting and reporting NHS Wales waiting time data, it is likely to be several months before the impact of the Welsh government's new plan to bring down lists can be assessed.

The plan included proposals to scrap automatic follow-up appointments, after planned NHS treatments, unless patients specifically needed or requested them.

It is hoped this will free up "tens of thousands" of hospital appointments in Wales for those waiting to be seen by a specialist for the first time.

Ap Gwynfor re-stated his commitment that waits of two years or longer would be eliminated in Wales "within months" when the plans were unveiled.

However, he refused to set out a more detailed timescale as to when this reduction would be achieved.

A two-month gap between collecting and publishing data on waiting times means final figures are only currently available for July, while there is a shorter gap for urgent care figures.

The data for A&E departments in Wales showed they continued to be under significant pressure in August despite a decrease in attendances compared to the record-breaking figures for July.

In August there were just under 97,700 attendances to all emergency departments, an average of 3,151 attendances per day - this was 204 fewer attendances per day on average than in the previous month.

In terms of A&E waits, in August, 63.8% of patients spent less than four hours in emergency departments from arrival until admission, transfer or discharge.

This was an improvement compared to the previous month - but still well below the 95% target which has never been met.

In August, 10,977 patients waited 12 hours or more, 6.3% lower than in the previous month, but targets state nobody should be waiting in an A&E this long.

But the Welsh government insists there has been a distinct improvement in how quickly ambulance crews are able to hand patients over to A&E departments - with the rise in the proportion of patients handed over within a 15 minute and 45 minute targets

Ap Gwynfor welcomed this progress, but warned the NHS needed to sustain progress.