NHS WAITS: Minister admits figures are ‘not good enough’

Mabon ap Gwynfor, the Cabinet Minister for Health and Care, has a blunt verdict on the latest NHS figures: “We know these figures are not good enough.” The Welsh waiting list has grown for a fifth month in a row, and September was the second busiest month on record in A&E.

Locally, ambulances in Swansea Bay are the slowest in Wales to reach serious “orange” calls, taking a median of nearly three hours in September, and the health board has the worst cancer waits in the country. In Hywel Dda, two-year waits have more than trebled in a year and therapy queues are the longest in Wales.

There is better news too: Swansea Bay’s A&E departments are the fastest in Wales on the four-hour measure, and the board has nobody waiting two years for treatment.

The figures come from the Welsh Government’s monthly NHS performance report, published on Thursday, and the data behind it. The Welsh waiting list stood at just over 714,200 patient pathways at the end of August, two-year waits rose by 337 to just under 5,100, and the minister has told health boards they are responsible for delivering plans “to reset how planned care is delivered in Wales”.

Swansea Bay: best A&E in Wales at 71.3%, and Morriston’s busiest September

In September, 71.3% of patients at Swansea Bay emergency departments were seen, admitted or sent home within four hours, the best of any health board. The Welsh figure was 63.9%, against a target of 95%, and Betsi Cadwaladr in north Wales was worst at 57.4%.

Swansea Bay also had the second lowest share of patients stuck in A&E for more than 12 hours, behind Cardiff and Vale. Across Wales 11,616 people waited 12 hours or longer in September, 6% more than in August, against a target of none.

It managed that while busier than ever for the time of year. Morriston saw 7,310 patients in September, 9% more than a year earlier, and the minor injuries unit at Neath Port Talbot Hospital 4,848, its busiest September on record, the StatsWales data shows.

Two hours 54 minutes: the slowest ambulance response to ‘orange’ calls in Wales

Getting to the hospital is another matter. The median ambulance response to orange calls, the category for serious conditions, was 2 hours 54 minutes in Swansea Bay in September, the slowest of any health board and the longest since the category was introduced in December.

One in ten orange patients in Swansea Bay waited more than 8 hours 32 minutes, the ambulance service’s figures show. In August the median was 1 hour 56 minutes; across Wales in September it was 1 hour 23 minutes, and Powys was fastest at 51 minutes.

For red calls, where a patient is at significant risk of cardiac or respiratory arrest, Swansea Bay’s median response was 9 minutes 59 seconds against a target of 6 to 8 minutes. A year earlier it was 7 minutes 51 seconds.

Hywel Dda’s red median was 11 minutes 37 seconds, the second slowest in Wales after Powys. For purple calls, cardiac and respiratory arrests, Swansea Bay met the target at 6 minutes 41 seconds while Hywel Dda missed it at 9 minutes 22 seconds, with one in ten waiting more than 25 minutes.

No two-year waits in Swansea Bay, but only 41% of cancer patients treated on time

On planned care Swansea Bay has no pathways waiting more than two years, no one-year waits for a first outpatient appointment and no therapy patients waiting beyond 14 weeks, the only board in Wales with a clean sheet on all three.

Its overall list is 95,485 pathways, around 1,600 more than in July but level with a year ago. The number waiting over a year has fallen from 12,432 to 11,343 in that time.

The demand keeps coming: 19,266 outpatient referrals reached the board in August, its busiest August on record, 11,566 of them from GPs.

Cancer is the exception to the good news. Only 41.0% of Swansea Bay patients started treatment within 62 days of cancer first being suspected in August, the lowest in Wales and far below the 75% target.

Cwm Taf Morgannwg was best at 66.2%, and Wales as a whole managed 59.9%, down on July.

Hywel Dda: two-year waits up from 193 to 698 in a year, and Wales’ longest therapy queues

Hywel Dda, which runs Glangwili, Prince Philip, Withybush and Bronglais hospitals, is heading the other way on long waits. In August 698 of its pathways had waited more than two years, up from 504 in July and 193 a year earlier, the waiting list data shows.

The board’s list stands at 89,237 pathways, 1,174 more than in July, and 13,281 of them have waited more than a year, around 1,400 more than in August 2025. Outpatient referrals, at 13,725 in August, were 6% fewer than a year earlier.

It has the highest proportion of therapy pathways over the 14-week target in Wales, at 31.8%. The Welsh Government set a target of spring 2024 for every board to be within the 14-week limit.

It is second worst for diagnostic waits over eight weeks, behind Cardiff and Vale, where more than half of patients breach the target. On A&E and cancer it sits in the middle of the pack: third best on the four-hour target and on 62-day cancer treatment, and above the Welsh average on 12-hour waits.

Glangwili in Carmarthen had its busiest September on record, with 5,003 attendances, as did Withybush and Bronglais. Across the four hospitals and the board’s minor injuries units, 16,231 people came through the doors, 6.5% more than in September 2025.

Wales-wide: 558,100 patients waiting, and a record September in A&E

The 714,200 pathways on the Welsh list at the end of August were up around 4,500 on July. Management information suggests that is about 558,100 individual patients, since some people are on more than one list.

The 5,100 two-year waits are 7.1% more than in July but 92.8% below the peak. The number waiting over 36 weeks rose to just under 179,500, and the average wait lengthened to 17.2 weeks.

Provisional data for September points to a bigger list overall but fewer two-year waits, the minister said. The Plaid Cymru government has put an extra £145m into clinically led plans to cut long waits, and he said he expects to see progress soon.

A&E departments saw just over 98,700 people in September, an average of 3,291 a day and the highest for a September on record. Across Wales the median red ambulance response was 9 minutes 32 seconds, outside the target.

‘Our NHS is in crisis’: Welsh Conservatives demand a health emergency

Natasha Asghar, the Welsh Conservatives‘ shadow health minister, said the figures “make for troubling reading ahead of what promises to be a difficult winter”.

She said: “More people are stuck waiting for treatment, and they are waiting even longer than before. Fewer people are starting their cancer treatment within the target, our A&E performance is deteriorating, and ambulances are taking longer to respond to the most serious incidents as they consistently miss targets.”

The party has been calling on the Plaid Cymru government to declare a health emergency, and contrasts the 5,068 two-year waits in Wales with 222 in England, and the 17.2-week median wait with 12.2 weeks across the border.

Asghar added: “Our NHS is in crisis. Plaid Cymru have been focused on trying to break up the United Kingdom whilst we Welsh Conservatives have been demanding they declare a health emergency to mobilise the necessary apparatus of the Welsh Government to surge capacity and improve outcomes for patients across Wales.”

She said the government “cannot keep blaming others”. “These failures fall at the feet of Plaid Cymru’s Government, they must now focus relentlessly on getting our health services ready for winter before more patients suffer needlessly.”

Labour: Plaid ‘not focused on the health service’

Welsh Labour’s health spokesperson, Ken Skates MS, called the rises “shocking”. “The total number of waits soaring to the highest in 10 months demonstrates that Plaid Cymru are not focused on the health service,” he said.

He added: “These are the real-life consequences of Plaid Cymru’s inaction in government. Their priority should be the NHS, not pursuing independence.”

The A&E clock now runs until you leave, so expect next month’s figures to look worse

From 1 October the Welsh Government has scrapped “clinical exceptions”, the guidance that let hospitals stop the four-hour clock when treatment ended rather than when a patient actually left the department, including those waiting for transport home.

The Welsh Government’s statisticians estimate the change will knock three to five percentage points off the four-hour figure from October’s data onwards, so next month’s numbers will not be directly comparable with these.

Ap Gwynfor said the change answered calls from senior emergency clinicians and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine for more transparent reporting. “We are anticipating a challenging end of the autumn and a difficult winter ahead,” he said, adding that winter planning had started earlier than before.

He thanked NHS and social care staff, who “do an incredible job, often under real pressure”. A new emergency and acute care policy framework is due to be launched next month.