MORE than 3,000 patients in Gwent waited longer than four hours to be dealt with in the area's A&E units last month, as the demands of an already difficult winter for the NHS hit hardest.

They were among almost 20,000 patients Wales-wide who waited longer than four hours in A&E units in March.

The extreme weather of the first days of March and mid-March, the former preceded by several days of freezing temperatures, played a big part in creating a surge in demand at already very busy A&E units.

In Gwent, the Royal Gwent Hospital's A&E unit bore the brunt of the situation.

Of a total of 3,106 patients in Gwent who waited more than four hours in March, 2,403 were at the Royal Gwent. The remaining 703 were at Nevill Hall Hospital.

At the Royal Gwent, more than third of A&E patients (36.4 per cent) waited more than four hours to be dealt with.

But while the 63.6 per cent performance at the hospital in terms of those dealt with in four hours was a low, three other A&E units in other parts of Wales fared worse in March.

At Morriston in Swansea, 58.9 per cent of patients were dealt with inside four hours, while at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Bodelwyddan in north Wales the rate was 55 per cent, and at Wrexham Maelor it was just 50.4 per cent.

At Nevill Hall, 78.9 per cent of A&E patients were dealt with inside four hours, the fourth highest performance in March out of Wales' 13 units.

Health secretary Vaughan Gething paid tribute to NHS staff for their efforts, noting that "it has been the second busiest January to March for attendance at emergency departments on record, including very high levels of flu and elderly admissions."

"The extreme weather in early March also made it extremely difficult for our NHS to operate, which has clearly had an effect on waiting times in emergency departments across Wales," he added.

The A&E performance figures for March have been pounced upon however, by the Welsh Conservatives.

Across Wales last month, 75.6 per cent of patients were seen within the four-hour target, which the party labelled as "a significant deterioration" on March last year, when the figure was 81 per cent.

Its shadow health secretary Angela Burns said "the sad truth is that people are no longer surprised to hear that A&E waiting times have once again reached new levels of 'worst ever', and that patients are being "let down by the suits in charge".

“This is a service that has been chronically under-funded by the Welsh Labour Government, and this frightening logjam in our emergency services is the price being paid as a result," she added.