RISING demand for diagnostic testing and therapies in Gwent hospitals is putting some services under pressure, and causing more patients to wait longer than they should.

By the end of last December, new figures reveal, there were 21,577 people in Gwent on diagnostic and therapy waiting lists, up more than one third on December 2010.

The situation in Gwent mirrors that across much of Wales, with endoscopy, physiotherapy, and radiology registering big waiting list increases, particularly during last November-December.

Timely access to diagnostic tests and therapies is vital to helping maintain overall referral-to-treatment waiting times, and the maximum wait for diagnostics should be eight weeks, and for therapies 14 weeks.

But Wales-wide the numbers of patients waiting longer than these maximum times is increasing and there are particular hotspots in Gwent.

The increase over the year to December 2011 was 5,823 patients and that has gradually translated into more long waits up to and beyond the maximum waiting times.

In December 2010, 903 patients in Gwent had waited eight-14 weeks for diagnostics or therapies but this had risen to 2,951 by the end of December last year. And there were 31 patients who had been waiting more than 14 weeks in December 2010, compared to 463 a year on.

Few specialties have escaped big increases, and those to have suffered include diagnostic endoscopy. In December 2010 just five patients in Gwent had waited longer than eight weeks, but by the end of December 2011 the figure had risen to 888 and 184 of these had waited longer than 14 weeks.

Eight-14 week waits have also mushroomed in cardiology - 289 in December 2011 against just four a year earlier - and in physiotherapy, podiatry, colonoscopy and gastroscopy.

There have been capacity problems in some specialties for some time, but in others demand is creating them, and health bosses are looking at ways of minimising the potential impact on overall waits for treatment.