MORE than 650 patients in Gwent had waited longer than a year for treatment in the area's hospitals by the end of December, as waiting times figures worsened once more.

The figure was revealed as Aneurin Bevan University Health Board cited the knock-on effects of increasing emergency demand as the key factor behind a big jump during that month in the amount of patients waiting longer than 36 weeks from referral to treatment.

Under Wales' referral to treatment time (RTT) targets, no patient should wait longer than 36 weeks - but by December 31, 3,342 patients in Gwent had waited longer, including those with more than a year on the list.

Official figures have yet to be issued for the rest of Wales, but given that surges in emergency demand that disrupted hospitals across the country in December, similar increases are to be expected in the numbers of patients waiting beyond the target time in other areas.

That emergency demand was a big factor behind record low ambulance response times performance in Wales in December, and the result in many hospitals was the cancellation of operations, as surgical beds were occupied by medical patients .

A health board report acknowledged "significant" numbers of operations being cancelled due to a lack of beds, with all surgical specialties affected.

Orthopaedics and ophthalmology accounted for the majority of the 656 patients who had been waiting longer than a year by the end of December, indicative of long term pressure on beds, but also due to other factors such as a failure to maintain additional operating lists at weekends due to a lack of theatre staff.

Sickness among ophthalmology staff was also a factor in increasing numbers of long waits in that speciality, and approval has recently been given for 450 cataract operations for Gwent patients to be carried out at an NHS treatment centre in Bristol.

Last September the health board forecast that eliminating RTT waits for more than 36 weeks could be achieved by the end of March this year, but instead, the position is now likely to be worse than it was by the same time last year, when that threshold was breached for 878 patients.

Chairman David Jenkins called the deterioration from what the board was predicting "quite alarming."

"We must ensure we have greater confidence in what we are predicting, and we need a greater expectation that plans will deliver," he said.

"This drift in expectations is really worrying and current changes in RTT performance are not acceptable.

"Behind these figures are people. in these cases, somebody is waiting far too long for treatment to ease pain and to improve the quality of their life."