THE number of Gwent patients waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment in hospitals in Wales reached 2,750 in July, with the rise in the number of long waits showing no sign of going into reverse.

By July 31, 2,340 Gwent patients had waited longer than 36 weeks for treatment in the area's hospitals, with another 410 having endured lengthy waits on lists in health boards such as Cardiff and Vale, and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg.

The number of Gwent patients waiting longer than 36 weeks has more than doubled since the end of March, when 1,180 were waiting for treatment in or outside Gwent, and the rate of increase during April-July makes grim reading.

No patient in Wales should expect to have to wait more than 36 weeks from referral to treatment, that being a key Welsh Government-set NHS target. It is what is known as a Tier One priority, but is one that for most health boards is becoming something of a distant dream in terms of achievement.

Demand is increasingly difficult to meet given the continued squeeze on NHS budgets, and with resources set to be stretched for several more years to come, the likelihood of eliminating waits of longer than 36 weeks in the short term and possibly even the medium term, is small.

Last year the Welsh Government invested an extra several millions of pounds into the NHS in Wales to help drive down waiting times, but though the now traditional extra operating sessions during January-March helped reduce the number of long waits it did not, as in previous years, enable health boards to eliminate them.

Long waits have risen, again traditionally, during the spring and summer, but this year the rate of increase has been quicker.

Gwent's problem areas are trauma and orthopaedics, in which at the end of July 1,267 patients had been waiting longer than 36 weeks for treatment in a Gwent hospital - almost three times the figure at the end of March - and oral surgery.

In the latter, 649 patients had waited longer than 36 weeks by the end of July.

The backlog in trauma and orthopaedics is such that even if extra funding were to be made available, the chances of eliminating waits of more than 36 weeks by the end of next march are slim. It would likely be into 2015/16 before the target could be hit in that speciality.