Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Jeremy Miles, said:
We recognise the impact long waits for treatment have on people’s lives, both mentally and physically, and are doing everything we can to see these fall as quickly as possible.
We know demand for healthcare in Wales is continually increasing and the sector is under great pressure, but our incredible NHS workforce still delivers high quality care every single day.
Reducing the longest waiting times is a priority for me and we have invested an additional £50m to support health boards.
Last week’s draft budget also provided more than £600m in extra revenue and capital funding for health and social care, which will also support the NHS to continue the effort to reduce long waiting times.
Overall, two-year waits for treatment are now almost two-thirds lower than at their peak during the pandemic. We expect to see these fall markedly over the coming months as we start to see the impact of the additional £50m to reduce long waiting times.
The number of pathways waiting longer than a year for a first outpatient appointment increased in October to just over 81,000, but this is still a fifth lower than the peak in August 2022.
Emergency care services continue to be extremely busy with nearly 6,000 immediately life-threatening ‘red’ calls to the ambulance service in November – the highest daily average (198) on record. But the ambulance service responded to the highest ever number of these calls within eight minutes.
Urgent and emergency care services are also under significant pressure but there was an improvement in performance against the 12-hour target.
There was also an improvement in cancer performance in October, with the proportion starting treatment within 62 days increasing to 58%, from 55% in September. More than 2,000 people started treatment and more than 15,500 people received the good news they did not have cancer.
There were reductions in long waits for both diagnostics and therapies services and a further reduction in the number of hospital discharge delays in November. This is the third month in a row the total number of delays have fallen and November’s figure was the lowest in 2024.
We are publishing individual health board performance data for the second time today.
I’m pleased to see Swansea Bay University Health Board has no first outpatient appointments waiting more than a year and the lowest proportion of referral to treatment pathways waiting more than a year in October.
Despite significant pressures on emergency care services, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board continue to deliver timely ambulance patient handover performance and improvements have also been demonstrated across most performance measures by Cwm Taf University Health Board.
This shows where health boards can learn from each other to help improve the timeliness of care they offer.