Follow-up appointments scrapped in Welsh NHS waiting list plan

According to ap Gwynfor, the approach will result in a permanent reduction in waiting times instead of short-term fixes.

“Waiting two years for planned care is not acceptable. This investment is tied to health boards changing how they work, permanently, so the progress I expect to see doesn’t slip back as it has in the past,” he said.

“That’s the difference between a short-term fix and lasting change.”

He continued: “Patients should receive timely advice, diagnosis and treatment through services that are designed around their needs, not around organisational boundaries.

“None of this is possible without the hard work and expertise of NHS staff. Their leadership sits at the heart of this approach, and every health board must now work together to deliver further improvements for patients.”

The latest statistics show there were more than 698,500 cases on an NHS waiting list in Wales in June – a figure that has grown since the new government was elected.

Of these, almost 4,100 had been waiting two years or longer – up from just under 2,600 in March.

The first minister and health minister previously promised waits of two years or longer for NHS treatment would be eliminated in a matter “of months”.

But the new plan does not set an exact date for when this will be achieved – although it states the total size of the waiting lists will be brought down to pre-Covid-19 levels (about 460,000 cases) by the end of this Senedd term.

More details about timescales are expected later this year.

Last month, the health minister promised he would unveil a waiting list reduction plan that “would be a fundamentally different approach to what came before… not more of the same”.

But BBC Wales understands the new plan does not contain lots of new ideas, instead bringing together reforms that have been proven to work and rolling them out consistently across the country.