The number of people waiting for treatment on the NHS in Wales has increased for the second month in a row, after falling for five consecutive months.
New data published today shows that there are 743,300 patient pathways waiting for treatment on the NHS in April, an increase from 734,700 the previous month. The number of patient pathways is not the same as the number of individual patients as some people have more than one pathway open.
It is estimated that it amounts to around 582,000 individual patients waiting for treatment in Wales, amounting to around 18% of the population of Wales. This was an increase of 6,000 patients in March. According to the NHS Wales Chief Executive, these figures must be seen in the context of continued high demand following the pandemic, where less people sought treatment for medical problems.
Last month it was revealed that the Welsh Government target to eliminate two year wait lists for patients in most specialties by March 2023 had not been met. In April, there were still 31,500 pathways waiting for more than two years for treatment, which is an increase on the previous month from 31,406.
The Welsh Government has identified a number of specialties where meeting this two-year target is particularly difficult, so they outlined 21 specialties which they focussed on meeting this target. Out of those specialties, in April, there remained 4,500 pathways waiting for longer than two years, an increase on March's figure of 4,300.
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Responding to the figures, Professor Jon Barry, Director in Wales at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “I am incredibly disappointed to see a further increase in waiting times for April. The downward trend we had been on was welcome, and issues such as the late Easter may have impacted these figures, but this jump of almost 9,000 should be considered a wake-up call. We cannot be complacent and to achieve considerable progress, we require a long-term, sustained approach from government, with appropriate resources and investment.”
The Royal College of Surgeons of England has long campaigned for innovations including surgical hubs to be harnessed to improve healthcare and help tackle the record NHS waiting lists.
Key points from the data:
In May there were 4,076 red (life threatening) calls to the ambulance service, 11.4% of all calls. An average of 131 immediately life-threatening calls were made each day, 5 more than in April.
54.4% of red calls received an emergency response within eight minutes. This was 1.4 percentage points higher than in April and the best since May 2022 (54.5%). Data for red calls are only comparable from May 2019 onwards.
There was an average of 3,199 daily attendances to emergency departments, an increase compared to the previous month and the second highest figure on record.
The proportion of patient pathways waiting less than 26 weeks decreased to 57.8% in April. This has been relatively stable after falling significantly from the levels pre-pandemic. The number of pathways waiting longer than 36 weeks increased in April, to just over 232,300, remaining high in historical context.
About 31,500 pathways were waiting more than two years, 55.3% lower than the peak and falling for a year after a consistent increase throughout 2021. The average (median) time patient pathways had been waiting for treatment at the end of April increased on the previous month to 20.4 weeks.
There are still around 4,500 patient pathways that have been waiting for treatment for longer than two years
For cancer services, less people started their first definitive treatment in April (1,527) than the previous month. The number of pathways closed following the patient being informed they did not have cancer decreased from the previous month to 12,099. Performance was unchanged against the 62 day target in April at 55.3% the same as the previous month.
In her response to the data, Judith Paget, the NHS Wales Chief Executive said: “Our NHS continues to see historically high levels of demand, but our dedicated, hard-working staff continue to provide high quality care every day. I am pleased to see continued improvement in timeliness of ambulance response – the best in a year – and further improvement in the performance of emergency departments despite continued pressure.
“The average number of daily attendances at emergency care facilities was the second highest on record in May, with nearly 100,000 attendances, but performance improved against the four-hour target. The average (median) time spent in emergency departments was just over 2 hours 30 minutes last month. Despite an increase in the average number of immediately life-threatening calls to the ambulance service each day in May, the proportion responded to in eight minutes increased by 1.4 percentage points to 54.4%. This was the best performance for a year, while over 85% of red calls saw a response on scene within 15 minutes.
"While I recognise much more needs to be done it’s encouraging to see improvements starting to come through a year after the launch of our Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care Programme.
"It’s disappointing to see the overall waiting list increase for the second month in a row, after falling for five consecutive months. But two-year waits decreased for the thirteenth consecutive month and the Health Minister has asked health boards to redouble efforts to tackle the longest waits.
"This must be seen in the context of continued high demand, with a significant increase in referrals since the COVID-19 pandemic. And we always expect less planned care activity during the Easter holidays. Activity in Primary Care also continues to increase, with hundreds of thousands of patients being seen in General Practices across Wales each week.
Today I am visiting Llandough hospital to see how Cardiff and Vale Health Board have cut their cancer waiting times backlog and in April they were the top performing health board for cancer services. It’s important that health boards learn from each other about how they are improving performance. We are meeting health boards to support them in improving performance and in particular tackling the longest waits for treatment.”
Speaking on behalf of Plaid Cymru, and responding to latest figures from NHS Wales, which shows an increase of 6,000 patients to NHS waiting lists, Peredur Owen Griffiths MS, said: “Missed targets, and thousands more patients added to waiting lists, this is a government that has desperately failed to get to grips with the grid-lock in our NHS.
"It’s not an overstatement to say that this crisis is affecting us all, and we need to see that Welsh Government has a plan to set our health and care services on to a better path. This starts with listening to the needs of our hard-working health and care staff, many of whom have once again taken to the picket lines in order to get their voices heard – and too many more have already left the sector.
“I don’t think it’s impossible for Welsh Government to come up with a plan that delivers better healthcare than we’re currently seeing – indeed, Plaid Cymru’s five point plan from January this year would have formed a great starting point, if Labour hadn’t have voted it down! But when Welsh Government can’t even manage to their own targets, it’s hard to have any confidence in their ability to fix these issues – we need more from this Labour government, and we need it soon.”
