One in eight people in Wales remain on an NHS waiting list following another rise in the number of patients not yet seen.
An additional 14 thousand were added to lists in March, bringing the total number of patients referred for treatment – but waiting for a hospital appointment – to 390,228.That figure stood at 376,786 in February.
When Carwyn Jones became First Minister at the end of 2009, 227,000 people were waiting for the start of their treatment. Today’s figures for March 2012 show a rise of over 70 per cent.
There has been a significant drop in the number of orthopaedics patients on waiting lists, following the health minister’s promise to ‘all but eliminate the problem’.
Despite this, 356 people had still been waiting over 36 weeks at the end of March – 186 of them within Cardiff and Vale health board.
Shadow Minister for Health Darren Millar AM said:
“The first minister’s reign over our NHS has seen a huge rise in the size of waiting lists, which currently shows no sign of decline.
“Thousands of people are still waiting far too long and widely varying delays in all specialities must be dealt with.
“How long you wait for treatment remains entirely dependent upon where you live. While enormous orthopaedics delays have been successfully tackled in most areas for example, they continue to be a problem at Cardiff and Vale.
“Despite the hard work of frontline staff our health boards are treading water financially. Labour’s record-breaking cuts are putting an immense strain on hospitals and the resulting problems are only set to get worse.
“I urge the first minister to take control of his problem and invest in our NHS.”
