Health Secretary response to latest NHS Wales performance data: February and March 2025
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Miles, responds to the latest NHS Wales performance data.
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Miles, said:
I am very happy to see a significant fall in the longest waits and the overall size of the waiting list falling for the third month in a row.
This shows what can be achieved when health boards focus on delivering services, including faster treatment and increased NHS capacity, by embracing new ways of working.
These efforts have been supported by our £50 million additional investment.
We still have more work to do to reach our ambitious targets, but it is encouraging to see waiting times consistently falling.
2 year waits have fallen to their lowest levels since June 2021 and were more than 26% lower compared to the previous month.
The number of pathways waiting more than a year for their first outpatient appointment has fallen for a third consecutive month and is nearly 28% lower than the peak in August 2022.
The number of patient pathways waiting 36 weeks and the average time waiting for treatment were both lower than the previous month.
Urgent and emergency care services across Wales continue to be extremely busy.
In March there were nearly 5,400 life-threatening ‘red’ calls to the ambulance service, 9% higher than the previous record level of demand for the month of March.
Despite this the average response time was less than 8 minutes and over 80% of calls were responded to within 15 minutes.
The number of patient pathways waiting for diagnostic services fell compared to the previous month, whilst performance also improved against the maximum wait target for both diagnostic tests and therapies services.
Performance improved against the 62 day cancer target in February, increasing to more than 60%, whilst 1,800 people started cancer treatment and 13,000 people were told the good news they did not have cancer.
A significant improvement was achieved in March in reducing the total number of delayed hospital discharges, with a drop by 114 delays over the previous month.
This was the lowest delay figure over the past year and the overall second lowest since reporting began 2 years ago.