A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “Our hard-working NHS staff
continue to operate amid high and increasing levels of demand. At
least 2 million contacts are made with the NHS each month, in a
country with a population of over 3.1 million residents –
including 500,000 consultations. On top of this 399,000 hits were
recorded on the NHS Wales 111 website and 71,000 calls made to
the phone 111 service.
“It’s encouraging to see the longest waits are continuing to
fall, now more than 60% lower than the peak. The majority of
pathways (59.7%) are waiting less than 26 weeks, and the median
is still around 19 weeks.
"The number of people waiting longer than eight weeks for
diagnostic services has also decreased.
"It’s disappointing to see overall waiting lists back to their
highest levels on record and that is due to the number of people
joining the waiting lists. But over the last 12 months waiting
lists in Wales have only increased by 1.9% compared to 10.7% in
England. Health boards are working hard to tackle the longest
waits and the most urgent cases are always seen first.
"Demand for emergency care services remains high, and performance
is stable and generally better than the same period in 2022. The
average response time for the most urgent ambulance call (red)
was seven minutes and 57 seconds which is under the 8 minute
target but this is below the percentage set by the Welsh
Government. Almost 70% of patients waited for less than 4 hours
to be dealt with in Emergency Departments.
"We and health and social care partners are working hard to
target improvements, particularly in respect of patient flow,
ahead of the winter period.
"Cancer treatment has increased against the 62 day target but the
Welsh Government accept that there is still more to do in this
area despite the fact that 14,074 people were informed in one
month that they did not have cancer.
"Despite the pressures on budgets, the Health Minister expects
health boards to achieve the new targets for reducing the longest
waits and we will continue to support them to achieve that."
Notes to editors
New targets for health boards set by the Health Minister:
- 97% of those waiting at the end of December 2023 will be
waiting less than 104 weeks.
- 99% of those waiting at the end of March 2024 will be waiting
less than 104 weeks.
