One of Wales' leading cancer consultants has said the NHS backlog is "beyond repair" as the number of people waiting for treatment reaches record levels. There are a record 691,885 patients currently on the NHS waiting list, with more than a quarter of a million of them on it for nine months or more.
Currently there are 164,000 patients who have been on an NHS waiting list for more than a year, compared to less than 7,000 two years ago. Earlier this week Health Minister Eluned Morgan unveiled a plan to tackle the backlog, including 'super saturdays' and incentives to NHS staff to encourage them to work longer hours.
However, a top consultant and member of the Royal College of Physicians Council has said that the wait is currently so long that "week in, week out" she is seeing patients whose cancer diagnosis has progressed so far that it is almost untreatable with patients missing "curable" steps. Read more: Welsh NHS described as 'broken' as waiting times crisis deepens
Speaking to BBC Radio Four Dr Hilary Williams said: " For me, the numbers are huge, but actually the reality is I am seeing those patients and in my world of cancer, that means that cancer patients are missing the curative step. We have a thing called stage migration in cancer and that means that somebody is going from a curable or a treatable cancer to perhaps by the time I meet them there is not very much I can do and I am seeing that week in, week out.
"It’s heartbreaking whatever age you are, but when you see a mum who has got school age kids it’s just really really tough, you really really feel for them, and we are seeing it regularly."
She said that there is increased pressure on NHS staff who "need to see change, and need to see a light at the end of the tunnel." Speaking to the programme she said: "Everyone is working hard but in many ways, the system is beyond repair at this point."
When asked about how she saw the backlog shifting, Dr Williams said: "We need a plan for two years, five years, 10 years, and we need those posts funded. The missing link is often if we have the money, those people need expert training. But it takes three years to get someone who is trained to do an endoscopy or four years to be an expert in reporting scans.
"And this has to be the whole of Wales, but it also has to be the whole of the UK, but you know the UK government’s Health and Social Care bill hasn’t got a workplace plan - so we can train more people in Wales but they will be poached by England. So, it has to be a UK-wide plan."
Speaking on waiting times on a daily basis, Dr Williams said that while most people are "supportive", she acknowledged "you’re at breaking point aren’t you when you’ve been in A&E for 12-hours. They can get pretty desperate."
"What I need actually is more time, I spend a lot of time talking to people about the journey until they’ve gotten to me so they can move forward. We don’t have the time to care at the moment, people do come into my clinics and they have had fantastic care up until now, but there are people who are missing out."
A plan to reduce the record-breaking backlog of planned NHS care has been published by the Welsh Government. As part of the strategy, a series of targets have been set out for health boards to achieve, including a pledge to eliminate one-year waits for treatment in most specialties by spring 2025.
It also focuses heavily on providing care closer to people's homes and offering more consultations virtually wherever possible. During the Welsh Government press conference on Tuesday lunchtime, Health Minister Eluned Morgan said 'Super Saturdays' would be introduced to boost productivity over weekends, adding that incentives would be offered to NHS staff to encourage them to work longer hours.
However, opposition parties have described the plan as "unambitious" and criticised the lack of detail on boosting workforce numbers. The health minister also admitted that some patients could still be waiting longer than a year for orthopaedic treatment by spring 2025 because they are more easily postponed by urgent cases in A&E.
"We're looking to develop high-volume places - called 'green lanes' - where [planned procedures are] kept apart from urgent cases in the likes of A&E so we can get our consultants carrying out the operations they're very keen to do. We're looking to do more 'Super Saturdays', for example, and we will be encouraging and incentivising people to work longer hours," said Ms Morgan. "We have made a commitment to employ more than 12,000 new people into the NHS over the course of this Senedd."
At the start of the pandemic the Welsh Government made the decision to postpone non-urgent care so staff and resources could be used to tackle the Covid crisis. It meant the NHS waiting list ballooned, with more than one in five patients now awaiting some form of treatment two years on. You can read the latest update on NHS performance here.
