Elimination of treatment waits of more than 36 weeks for Gwent patients out of reach - for now

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board wants to eliminate waits of longer than 36 weeks - from referral - but this is proving frustratingly elusive.

By March 31,

, but by end of April it had risen to 266.

Huge progress has been made in tackling long treatment waits. In April 2015, 2,777 patients had been waiting more than 36 weeks rising to more than 4,000 in December that year before a consistent downward trend began.

But capacity issues and emergency pressures, the latter particularly during winter, are a constant challenge, and progress was further slowed earlier this year due to problems for another NHS provider in performing ophthalmology treatments for Gwent patients under an outsourcing arrangement.

The health board received £3.1 million in extra funding from Welsh Government in 2018/19 to help it eliminate 36-week waits by the end of March, and may have to pay back some of that money as a result of missing that deadline.

It now hopes to achieve that goal by the end of 2019 though ongoing issues with rising demand mean this remains a big challenge.

The April increase in long treatment waits is confined almost exclusively to two specialties, orthopaedics (up from 78 to 166 cases) and ophthalmology (up from 31 to 91 cases).

Both have been subject to outsourcing in recent years, to boost capacity beyond Gwent hospitals for patients willing to travel, and

for more than 2,000 eye treatments and 4,300 ophthalmology outpatient appointments was approved last month. This programme is due to start in July.

At the end of March, for the first time since 2010, waits of more than eight weeks for a diagnostic test were eliminated in Gwent.

By the end of April, 31 patients had been waiting more than eight weeks - mainly for heart tests or endoscopies - but health chiefs hope to keep this under control in the coming months.