ACCIDENT and emergency waiting times improved in Gwent hospitals during April, according to new figures, after an extremely testing March.

The improvement is relative - performance against the four-hour target remains way short of the 95 per cent minimum - but has begun to head in the right direction compared to the previous month.

At the Royal Gwent Hospital's A&E department, 69.5 per cent of patients were dealt with inside the four-hour target, while at the Nevill Hall unit, the figure was 82.4 per cent.

These figures improved on the march performance of 63.6 per cent (Royal Gwent) and 78.9 per cent (Nevill Hall).

Encouragingly for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (UHB), the improvement in April was achieved despite each unit seeing more patients. At the Royal Gwent, there were 6,647 attendances last month, 63 more than during March, and at Nevill Hall there were 3,560, an increase of 222.

Nevill Hall's April A&E performance was the fourth highest of Wales' 13 A&E units, while the Royal Gwent's was 10th.

Compared to April last year, performance at the Royal Gwent was slightly down (0.9 percentage points), but at Nevill Hall last month's performance was well below that of April 2017 (7.9 percentage points).

This is despite April last year being busier than last month at each A&E unit.

Much can depend however, on the types of cases coming in - and the proportion of these that are deemed serious - which can impact on waiting times for less urgent patients. The availability of beds in other parts of the hospital can also be a factor that affects A&E waiting times performance.

During April, 543 patients waited more than 12 hours to be dealt with in A&E units in Gwent, the majority as usual at the busier Royal Gwent.

This was a notable improvement on the 751 waits of beyond 12 hours in March, but year-on-year it was a increase. The April 2017 figure was 447.

The Welsh Government has the elimination of waits of more than 12 hours in A&E as a priority, but this seems a distant prospect at present, and it is an issue for health boards across Wales.

Last month, in Wales as a whole, 3,819 patients waited more than 12 hours. Betsi Cadwaladr UHB in north Wales accounted for by far the most of these - 1,519 - and only Cardiff and Vale (116) and Cwm Taf (208) had fewer than Gwent.

An Aneurin Bevan UHB report describes A&E pressures during the winter as "unprecedented" and another factor has been increases in ambulance handover times of an a hour and more.