NHS activity and performance summary: January and February 2020

Following the announcement on Friday 13th of March regarding relaxation of targets and monitoring of the NHS in Wales as well as cancellation of certain procedures, we are considering what changes need to be made to the publication of these statistics. We will update users shortly on our plans.

Unscheduled care

The percentage of patients spending less than 4 hours in A&E improved and the number of patients spending more than 12 hours in A&E decreased since the previous month. Average daily A&E attendances decreased from the previous month.

The overall average number of daily calls to the ambulance service and the average daily number of the most serious calls (‘red’) decreased in February 2020. The percentage of red calls receiving a response within 8 minutes increased and was above the 65% target.

The number of delayed transfers of care increased in February but the average over three months has decreased.

Scheduled care

The number of patients waiting longer than the target time increased for diagnostic tests and therapy services in January. Average (median) waiting times for both diagnostic tests and therapy services decreased.

Referral to treatment performance decreased since last month. The percentage of patients waiting less than 26 weeks decreased (to the lowest since September 2011) and the number waiting longer than 36 weeks increased (to the highest since August 2015). The average time waiting for treatment also increased from last month.

Over the year to January 2020, the number of patients newly diagnosed with cancer who have started treatment via the urgent suspected cancer route has increased. However, over the same time period the number starting treatment not via the urgent suspected cancer route has decreased. Performance was below the target for those treated via the urgent and for those treated not via the urgent route.

Experimental statistics show that the percentage of patients treated within the target time also decreased for the single cancer pathway.