A CHALLENGING target for reducing waiting times for diagnostic tests for patients in Gwent was achieved by the end of March, while another was missed by just two cases.

As part of an agreement with the Welsh Government, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board undertook to have no more than 1,700 patients waiting more than six weeks for a test by March 31.

This was an ambitious aim, given longstanding backlogs of waits of more than eight weeks, which the health board has been striving to eliminate for several years.

But by March 31, 814 patients in Gwent had waited more than six weeks, on paper a comfortable achievement, but all the more impressive for being achieved against the backdrop of an exceptionally busy winter for the NHS.

Eight weeks is the official maximum waiting time target for a range of diagnostic tests, such endoscopies, MRI Ultrasound and CT scans, and some heart tests.

The health board had pledged to eliminate waits of more than eight weeks by March 31, but within the 814 cases waiting more than six weeks by that date were two cases above eight weeks. One was over the target by a matter of days, and the other was more longstanding, at close to 23 weeks.

Health board chiefs will be frustrated at still having two cases beyond eight weeks on the books, but at the end of February the figure was 550, and at the end of 2016 it was a whopping 6,175.

It has made the reduction of long waits for diagnostic waits a priority, and has delivered. The key now will be sustaining the improvements of the 16 months to March 31.

Many patients have been sent to the NHS treatment centre at Emerson’s Green in Bristol for endoscopies, as a means of providing more capacity to deal with the backlog of waits beyond eight weeks, and it remains to be seen whether this will be required to consolidate the recent improvements.

It is to be hoped too, that reductions in waiting times for tests will help the health board to manage the overall referral to treatment time (RTT) target, of which the test component is a part.