Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Jeremy Miles, said:
We have made tackling long waiting times our priority and today I’m announcing an extra £28m to help health boards cut the longest waits.
This new funding will pay for more evening and weekend appointments, high volume clinics and regional working to target the longest waits in specialties such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology, general surgery and gynaecology.
These interventions will have a significant impact for people waiting for treatment, tests and outpatient appointments and I look forward to seeing these monthly referral to treatment time figures improve as today’s investment is reflected in NHS performance.
Despite record levels of demand across the sector, today’s figures show some progress in both diagnostics and therapies, as well as performance against the 62-day cancer target increasing to 56.5%.
Urgent and emergency care services continue to be under great pressure, with the second highest daily numbers of ‘red’ (immediately life threatening) calls reported on record and sustained pressure at emergency departments.
However, the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust responded to the second highest number of people in the red category in eight minutes on record.
And although activity at emergency care facilities remains close to record levels, admissions to hospital were more than 5% lower than at the same time last year, suggesting plans to support more people to avoid a stay in hospital are having an impact.
We recognise more work needs to be done to support people with urgent care needs in the community and to improve timeliness of discharge home to help reduce long stays in ambulances and in emergency departments themselves.
Our Help Us to Help You campaign supports people to get the right care at the right time from the right service.