Welsh Government response to latest NHS Wales performance data

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We continue to see improvements and a high number of people receiving treatment, with over 358,000 consultations taking place in the latest month.  The number of pathways waiting more than two years decreased for the fourth consecutive month, falling by 14% since the peak in March. July also saw just over 87,000 patient pathways closed, a significant increase from the early stages of the pandemic and 10% higher than for the same month in 2021.

Performance against targets for diagnostic and therapies services continues to improve despite a general increase in demand for both services.Within diagnostics the number of patient pathways waiting longer than 8 weeks went down and for therapies the number waiting longer than fourteen weeks also decreased to just over 12,500.

Emergency care staff and services remain under pressure and performance is not where we, health boards nor the public want it to be. However, it is encouraging to see a 16% reduction in emergency admissions to hospitals in Wales when compared to August 2021. Our investment into Same Day Emergency Care services is helping to support this reduction and improve outcomes for patients. We also saw performance marginally improve against the four hour target, and the average (median) time spent in emergency departments shortened in August.

We also saw improvement in average (median) amber call response times which were almost 23 minutes quicker than in July.  Amber calls include responding to heart attacks and strokes. We continue to prioritise improving discharge planning and an increase in community capacity ahead of the winter period.