A report from the Wales Audit Office found that, while a majority of patients were treated within the 26-week target in March 2014, 11% of patients had waited longer than this, and 3% had waited more than 36 weeks. Performance against the Welsh government’s waiting time targets had been declining significantly since 2009, the auditors said.
NHS Wales’ current service approach ‘does not deliver sustainably low waiting times’, the WAO said, but it added that emerging plans have the potential to improve this position if they are implemented.
The Welsh government had not updated its service approach to reflect the challenge of meeting waiting time targets in an environment of increasing financial and resource constraints, the auditors said.
A major part of the problem was that the NHS had become over-dependent on short-term initiatives that generally involved staff working extra hours in order to try to reduce the numbers of patients facing very long waits.
‘Over-optimistic’ health board plans, based on meeting targets rather than what can realistically be achieved, also compounded problems.
However, the Welsh government is starting to work though these issues and is developing a medium-term Planned Care Programme. This aims to provide strong clinical leadership for whole-system improvement in the quality, safety and performance of planned care services throughout NHS Wales.
Huw Vaughan-Thomas, auditor general for Wales, said: ‘We are clear in our findings; the current approach to delivering services does not deliver sustainably low waiting times. As I have highlighted before, there needs to be an open and honest discussion about the way services are delivered.
‘There are emerging plans that have the potential to improve this position, but the NHS will need to act strongly and bravely to commit to this if meaningful changes are to be achieved.’
Commenting on the report, Darren Millar, chair of the Welsh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, said the deterioration in performance against NHS waiting times targets in Wales was ‘unacceptable’ and ‘a real concern’.
‘The report makes clear that this is not because of a lack of will or effort by NHS staff, but on the system and processes in place that are too short-termist,’ he said.
‘It is positive that the NHS now has some ideas that could help to turn the position around. However, it is imperative that the Welsh Government and NHS in Wales take this report as a wake-up call and make real changes and improvements.’
