75,000 outpatients waiting a year or more
NEARLY 75,000 people are waiting a year or more for an outpatient appointment, according to the latest NHS Wales performance data.
The outpatient target – the first to tackle the NHS backlog following the coronavirus pandemic – has been missed.
The Welsh Government had in April set a post-Covid target to see nobody waiting more than a year for a first appointment by the end of 2022. However, the number of people waiting stood at 74,976.
The Welsh Government has said that it is “disappointed that this ambitious target, which was not set in England, has not been met” and that it will continue to press health boards to focus on those waiting the longest once urgent cases have been dealt with.
There were improvements in some areas of emergency care, however, including ambulance response times, handover delays and A&E waiting times. The number of people waiting for hospital treatment has also fallen for the third month in a row.
Ambulance response times improved compared to record lows in previous months, with 48.9% of “red” calls – those regarded as immediately life-threatening – arriving within eight minutes in January. However, this remains below the 65% target and is worse than 12 months earlier. There were also 23,035 so-called “lost” hours, with ambulances stuck outside A&E units and unable to drop off patients.
A&E waiting times showed an improvement, with 69% of people being seen within the four-hour target in January.
Nearly 9,000 people spent 12 or more hours in A&E before being seen – the lowest figure in more than a year. However, under current targets, patients should not be waiting that long.
The number of patients in hospital, despite being well enough to be discharged, also fell by approximately 10% compared to the previous month. But around 1,000 patients were still waiting for a care package or for support to be arranged.
While waiting lists for hospital treatment fell by 1.75% (a total of 735,139 patient pathways), it remains the sixth highest number on record.