Over 616,000 patients waiting to start NHS treatment in Wales

More than 616,000 people across Wales are waiting to start treatment in the NHS.

The worrying new figures, released by the Welsh Government today, is the equivalent of one-in-four people in Wales on a waiting list.

616,700 individual patients are yet to begin their NHS treatment – the highest figure on record.

The number of patient pathways has also risen for another month.

In July this figure increased from just over 791,500 to just over 796,600. This is also the highest figure on record.

The number of open pathways is different to the number of people on an individual waiting list, as some patients will be waiting to start more than one treatment.

Just over 23,800 pathways were waiting more than two years. Whilst this is almost two thirds lower than the peak it is the fourth increase from the previous month after falling for twenty-four consecutive months.

Ambulance response figures

The Welsh Ambulance Service has target of attending 65 per cent of category red – immediately life threatening calls – within eight minutes.

However this target has not been met since summer 2020.

In August 51.8 per cent of emergency responses to immediately life threatening calls arrived within eight minutes. This was 3.6 percentage points higher than July.

Last month just over 34,400 emergency calls were made to the ambulance service.

Of these an average of 155 calls per day were classed as category red.

The majority of calls made to the ambulance service are classed as ‘amber’. The average response time for these calls was one hour 18 minutes.

Emergency departments

At the Wrexham Maelor Hospital 57.3 per cent of patients spent less than four hours in the emergency department.

Whilst this falls short of the Welsh Government target of 95 per cent of new patients spending less than four hours from arrival to either admission or discharge, the Wrexham Maelor was the best performing of North Wales’ three hospitals in August.

In Ysbyty Gwynedd 52 per cent of patients waited less than four hours whilst Ysbyty Glan Clwyd recorded just 46.2 per cent.

The Bodelwyddan hospital was the worst performing in Wales against the four hour target last month.

At the Wrexham Maelor Hospital 78.5 per cent of patients spent less than eight hours in the emergency department, compared to 63 per cent at Ysbyty Gwynedd and 66.6 per cent at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

Across Wales 69.3 per cent of patients in all NHS emergency departments spent less than four. hours in the department from arrival until admission, transfer or discharge.

Across August there were just over 92,000 at Wales’ emergency departments, with 14,600 admitted to either the same or a different hospital.

Cancer waiting times

At least 75 per cent of patients should start treatment within 62 days (without suspensions) of first being suspected of cancer.

However in July just 55 per cent of pathways started their first definitive treatment within 62 days of first being suspected of cancer.

According to Macmillian Cancer Support, a leading cancer charity, 2024 is currently on track to be the “worst year on record” for reaching cancer targets in Wales.

Analysis by the charity found that between January and July 2024, over 5,500 people with cancer in Wales waited more than two months to start treatment following an urgent referral.

In July alone, more than 900 people with cancer in Wales waited more than 62 days to start treatment from first being suspected of having cancer — 45 per cent of all those who started treatment in that month.

Performance for treatment start times also varies on the type of cancer an individual has been diagnosed with.

For example in July only one in three people with lower gastrointestinal cancer (34 per cent ) started their treatment on time, with a similar figure for urological cancer (36 per cent).

Kate Seymour, Head of Advocacy (Geographies) at Macmillan Cancer Support, said that too many people are “agonisingly waiting too long for cancer diagnoses and the essential treatment they need.”

Kate continued: “The First Minister has been clear that her first priority is to cut NHS waiting times, so we sincerely hope the new Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Miles, will work to tackle these completely unacceptable delays in cancer care.

“In the Senedd this week the First Minister promised to give us a list of who will be delivering what and when. Top of this list must be delivering on the commitments made over eighteen months ago to improve cancer care in the Wales Cancer Improvement Plan.

“Only then will Wales’s cancer services ensure everyone affected by cancer, no matter who they are or where they live, will be able to access support that meets their needs.”

Political response

Sam Rowlands MS, Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Minister said: “Waiting lists are completely out of control on Labour’s watch.

“Baroness Morgan cannot pass the buck for these statistics, because she was Labour’s Health Minister for three years and promised to get them down.

“Instead of prioritising the creation of 36 more politicians, Labour should have been recruiting more doctors and nurses to end the staffing crisis and free up more cash by ending the Welsh NHS’ over-reliance on agency workers.”

Jeremy Miles MS, the newly appointed cabinet secretary for health and social care, admitted that there is more to do to bring waiting times down and provide faster access to care and treatment.

Mr Miles said: High-quality, life-saving and life-changing care is provided every day by hard-working NHS staff throughout Wales in the face of continued pressures on services.

“Despite record levels of demand, these figures show positive progress in cancer care, ambulance response time and emergency department performance.

“But there is much more to do – the public rightly want to see waiting times come down and faster access to care and treatment.

“These figures also show a reduction in long waits for diagnostic tests and therapies.

“However, it is disappointing the number of long waits for referral to treatment has increased for the fourth month, despite previously falling for 24 consecutive months.

“While the trend in long waits has shown a recent increase, we have seen continuous improvements in previously very challenging areas such as orthopaedics, with two-year waits continuing to fall across all health boards over the last year.

“A new statistical report is also being published today setting out individual health boards’ performance against a range of NHS performance measures.

“I expect to see health boards learning from each other, so that those with further to go in delivering a particular service adopt and adapt good practice from those who have made better progress – and so we get better at spreading the best approaches quickly across Wales.”