SOME patients in Gwent may still have been waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment by the end of this month, despite health board efforts to eliminate long waits.

And that could mean Aneurin Bevan University Health Board losing more than £3 million of Welsh Government funding that was conditional upon dealing with all treatment waits of more than 36 weeks, in turn jeopardising its efforts to break even this year.

The latest figures reveal that by the end of January, 323 patients had been waiting more than 36 weeks for an operation in Gwent hospitals. That was an increase of 84 on December (239).

All bar one of the six health boards in Wales that provide acute services saw waits for treatment of more than 36 weeks increase during January, though more than two-thirds of the overall increase (1,158 patients) occurred in one health board - Betsi Cadwaladr in north Wales.

The majority of waits of more than 36 weeks in Gwent are for orthopaedic surgery, and it is this specialty and ophthalmology that have been causing the most concern among health board bosses, in terms of the difficulty of dealing with them by the end of March 31.

Gwent's health board had hoped to eliminate waits of longer than 36 weeks by the end of December, given the difficulty of trying to achieve that target during the traditionally challenging winter period (January-March).

The Welsh Government had agreed to give £3.1m in extra funding to the health board, conditional on achieving this aim, and despite not doing so, it was hoped that the funding could be retained if the target could be met by the end of March.

Now meeting even that target is doubtful however. A report to go before board members this week states that "a difficult January, with continued emergency pressures" resulted in the increase in waits of longer than 36 weeks that month, and there is now a "considerable risk" that the target will not be met in orthopaedics and ophthalmology by the end of this month.

In ophthalmology, this is down to an issue with a provider of treatments - used by the health board to supplement its own capacity - which has recently revealed that it "will be unable to treat all patients by the end of March".

Meanwhile in orthopaedics, a second report indicates there is a "significant risk" that around 60 major and complex cases will not be treated by March 31.

The focus through last autumn in driving down the number of long waits for treatment has resulted in the numbers of patients in Gwent waiting beyond 36 waits being the lowest for several years.

But eliminating such waits was the aim, with financial aid attached, and not achieving it puts the retention of that funding in serious doubt.

The Welsh Government took back a slice of such funding last year, when a March 31 2018 treatment target was not met, and though the health board is continuing discussions to retain the £3.1m this year, it is far from certain it will be successful.

And its financial plan and forecast assume the money will be retained, with that second report stating that "delivery of the performance targets is material to delivering financial balance".