First Minister misses NHS waiting times target, but longest waits for treatment fall

Stephen Price

The First Minister’s target to reduce waiting lists has been missed, but long waits for treatments in Wales have fallen by two-thirds in the last four months, according to newly published figures.

Latest NHS activity and performance summary released today (Thursday, 22 May 2025) for March and April 2025 has shown the Labour Government in Wales has missed a series of targets aimed at reducing waits in the Welsh NHS.

One significant target missed is the First Minister’s target to reduce two year waits to 8,000 by the Spring of 2025, a target set after missing the Welsh Government’s initial target of eradicating two year waits by March 2023.

The Welsh Government has also been accused of “moving the goalposts and still missing” by Plaid Cymru’s health spokesperson, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

The latest figures show by the end of March 2025, waiting times of more than two years have fallen to just under 8,400 – the lowest level since April 2021.

Thousands more treatments and tests have been delivered across NHS Wales due to more evening and weekend appointments, regional working between health boards and renewed efforts to improve access to planned care.

The overall size of the waiting list has also fallen for the fourth month in a row and there were also falls in long waits for outpatient appointments and diagnostic treatments in March 2025.

Investment

The Health Secretary invested £50m in health board plans to reduce the longest waiting times for treatment, to increase access to diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments and to cut long waiting times for children’s neurodevelopmental assessments in November 2024.

Management information indicates the additional funding has provided: 5,143 additional treatments over and above core NHS activity; 2,160 additional diagnostic tests over and above core NHS activity; 6,084 additional outpatient appointments over and above core NHS activity and 2,166 additional neurodevelopmental assessments over and above core NHS activity, eliminating three year waiting lists.

Health Secretary Jeremy Miles said: “The latest NHS performance figures show long waiting times are now at their lowest levels since April 2021 and the overall size of the waiting list has fallen for four months in a row.

“There are now just under 8,400 people waiting more than two years

“I would particularly like to praise Swansea Bay and Hywel Dda university health boards, which have joined Powys Health Board in having no patients waiting more than a year for a first outpatient appointment or two years for treatment.”

Focus

The latest figures also show the best performance against the 62-day cancer target since August 2021, at 63.5%.

Pressure on emergency services continues but performance against the four-hour and 12-hour emergency department target improved in April 2025, compared to the previous month. And more than half of life-threatening 999 ‘red’ calls to the Welsh Ambulance Service were responded to within the eight-minute target time.

Mr Miles added: “Our focus is now on supporting the NHS to continue to eliminate all two-year waits; to reduce the overall waiting list by 200,000 over the course of this year and to restore the maximum eight-week waiting time for diagnostic tests by March 2026.

“This is an ambitious aim and will require hard work over the coming year from everyone in the health service, but I am confident that together we can achieve this.

“I’d like to thank our NHS staff for their hard work getting us to this point.

“Together, we can continue to improve timely access to care for people across Wales.”

“The public deserves better”

Responding to the publication of today’s NHS Wales statistics showing that the First Minister has failed to meet her target on two-year-long waiting lists for NHS treatment, James Evans MS, Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care said: “Any success claimed by Labour Ministers today will be overshadowed by the fact that the Welsh NHS remains fundamentally broken after 26 years of mismanagement.”

He continued: “The Welsh Labour Government is still missing its cancer targets and no one at all should be waiting two years for treatment or over 12 hours in A&E, let alone over ten thousand patients.

“The Welsh Conservatives would go much further, guaranteeing 12-month maximum waits for treatment and 7-day waits for GP appointments, by declaring a health emergency and directing the resources and the entire apparatus of government at the health service.”

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MS said: “Two-year-long waiting lists for NHS treatment are unacceptable, given England virtually wiped out waits of this length several years ago, serious questions remain about how Labour have managed the NHS in Wales.

“People should never be forced to go private because they are spending months in pain waiting for treatment; the public deserves better.”

She added: “Waiting lists in Wales are far too high, even though some reductions are welcome. Labour’s mismanagement of the health service in Wales for the past 25 years has cost the public dearly.

“Unless social care is fixed, we won’t see the long-term reduction in pressure on our hospitals, and that is why fixing social care is the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ biggest priority as we head into next year’s Senedd elections.”

“Mismanagement”

Plaid Cymru has also criticised the Labour Government’s “mismanagement” of the NHS over the last 26 years of power, accusing them of running the Welsh NHS into “the ground”, by “constantly” missing targets with “no real sign of change”.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson on Health, Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said: “Hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists, over 8,000 of those waiting over two years. The fact that any Government is trying to claim that as a win, is a sign of how far down the road of Labour mismanagement we are.

“A record of constant failure and missed targets – that is the record of this Labour Government when it comes to our NHS. A record of people waiting too long, not getting the service they deserve – a record of failure.

“Even after moving the goalposts from their original target of eradicating two-year waits in 2023, Labour have still managed to miss their targets. Not only that, but on every single performance indicator – Labour have missed their targets.

“An NHS run into the ground, and waiting lists as long as this simply isn’t as good as it gets for Wales, our NHS can be so much more than this. With a new government with a credible plan for our NHS, a plan to reduce waiting lists and reform our NHS for the future. That is what Plaid Cymru offers in 2026.”