WAITS for patients of more than 12 hours in accident and emergency departments in Gwent during the first eight months of 2017 are 10 per cent down on the same period last year.

But approaching 4,000 patients waited above 12 hours to be dealt with in these units - at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall Hospitals - during January-August, and much remains to be done if these waits are to be eliminated.

During the first eight months of 2016, there were 4,388 waits of longer than 12 hours in Gwent A&E departments. This year the figure was 3,938.

The reduction is a small but encouraging one, given that tackling long waits in A&E is proving to be a difficult challenge, but just in Gwent hospitals, but across Wales.

In August, 1,861 patients endured waits of longer than 12 hours in Wales' A&E units.

This was down on the 2,104 during August 2016, and last month's reduction came despite there being 3.3 per cent more attendances Wales-wide this August.

The target is that no patients should wait longer than 12 hours to be dealt with in A&E but this remains a distant aspiration.

More encouragement in Gwent however, comes from the fact that the August figure for waits of more than 12 hours - 258 - was the lowest for a little over two years.

A number of initiatives have been introduced into Gwent's A&E departments and wider hospital systems, to try to improve waiting times.

These include 'safety huddles' - short multi-disciplinary briefings to brief staff on what is going on with each patient, and to try to anticipate future risks to improve patient safety and care.

An Aneurin Bevan University Health Board report states that this innovation has helped reduce waiting times for emergency patients.

The hospital's medical assessment unit has also trialled a new operating procedure that aims to ensure early discharge of patients from medical wards and to improve the flow of GP referred and emergency medical patients through the system.

This has increased discharges and reduced lengths of stay, and its benefits have been seen in the emergency department too, according to the report, with fewer patients in the corridor, a reduction in patients held on ambulances outside, and a reduction in handover times.

It is also credited as a factor in reducing waits of more than 12 hours.