Welsh Government response to latest NHS Wales performance data: March and April 2024

The Welsh Government has responded to the latest NHS performance data published today.

A Welsh Government spokesperson said:

Long waiting times are continuing to come down – these figures show they have fallen every month for two years and there has been a 71% reduction in long waits since their peak post-pandemic.

This is a testament to the hard work of our NHS staff who are working tirelessly to deliver high-quality care.

We will continue to focus on reducing waiting times and improving access to NHS care and services for people throughout Wales.

Despite continued high demand and four days of industrial action ahead of a Bank Holiday weekend, we have also seen improvements in diagnostic waiting times, with the number waiting longer than eight weeks falling to the lowest level since April 2020.

And there has been a significant increase in performance against the 62-day cancer target in March to 60.5%, compared to 53.4% the previous month – this is the highest since March 2022. However, we need to see further work from the NHS to sustain and improve on this performance.

Emergency departments recorded their busiest April on record. Despite this, performance in emergency departments improved against the four and 12-hour targets in April.

But ambulance performance is not where we want it to be. The average response to amber calls did improve, however, and more than 80% of red 999 calls received a response in 15 minutes. We have been clear with health boards about the need to release ambulance crews from emergency departments quickly to support faster response times to those in most need.