The Welsh NHS is expected to miss key waiting list targets ahead of the May 7 election, according to BBC Wales analysis. Targets include reducing waiting lists by 200,000 and ensuring no one waits over eight weeks for diagnostic tests.
Key points
Welsh NHS likely to miss waiting list targets
Targets include cutting waiting lists by 200,000
No one should wait more than eight weeks for tests
Official figures to be published before May 7 election
NHS performance is a key election issue
The Welsh government's key pre-election health targets look set to be missed, BBC Wales analysis suggests.
The targets include promises to cut waiting lists by 200,000, eliminating waits of two years or more, and making sure nobody is waiting more than eight weeks for diagnostic tests.
Analysis suggests the health service will likely fall short of achieving the targets - which were set out by the Health Secretary Jeremy Miles in April 2025 - despite considerable progress.
Official figures will be published on Thursday, and will give voters a final snapshot of NHS Wales' performance before election day on 7 May, following a campaign where the state of the NHS has been a key issue.
The monthly statistics will show the length of waiting lists as well as how emergency care and cancer services are also failing to meet key performance measures.
In a speech to health leaders in April last year, Miles said tackling waiting would be his "number one priority" promising that the government would reduce the overall size of the list by March 2026 and bring it back towards pre-pandemic levels.
The targets were backed up by £120m of extra funding which he said would be targeted at providing more outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests and treatments, including more than 20,000 cataract operations.
For the first of these targets to be met, the Welsh NHS would need to make a bigger reduction in the number of people waiting for planned treatments, over the course of a single month, than has ever been achieved before, the BBC's analysis suggests.
The proportionately large numbers still waiting two years or longer for planned treatment in north Wales will makes the second target difficult to achieve.
About 69% of the latest Welsh total of two year or more waits are in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board area; Swansea Bay has no-one waiting that long.
Meanwhile the latest figures show, at the start of this year, there were more than 48,000 cases where somebody had waited more than eight weeks for a diagnostic test, which is 10,000 more than when Miles set his target of reducing this number to zero.
The government rejected those claims, and Miles argued that it was the "right approach" to give people as much information as possible.
Q&A
What are the Welsh NHS waiting list targets set for April 2025?
The targets include cutting waiting lists by 200,000 and eliminating waits of two years or more, with a maximum wait of eight weeks for diagnostic tests.
When will the official figures on NHS Wales' performance be published?
The official figures will be published on Thursday, providing a final snapshot of NHS Wales' performance before the election on May 7.
What issues are expected to be highlighted in the upcoming NHS Wales statistics?
The statistics are expected to show the length of waiting lists and indicate failures in emergency care and cancer services to meet key performance measures.
How might the NHS performance impact the upcoming Welsh election?
The performance of the NHS is a key issue in the election campaign, and missing the waiting list targets could influence voter sentiment.
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Official data has a seven-week lag and would not have come through in time for the Senedd election on 7 May.
The provisional stats out on Thursday are for the month of March.
Without them, the government would not have been able to show whether its target could be met before the election.
Labour has previously faced criticism from its political opponents after failing to hit targets set out in its April 2022 Covid recovery plan.
Its overall record on the NHS after 27 years in power has also come under fierce scrutiny, and Thursday's figures are likely to be seized on by politicians from all parties.
Spending on health and social care accounts for more than half the Welsh government's approximate £28bn budget, and the NHS is consistently in the top three issues that matter most to voters.
Overall waiting lists have fallen for eight months in a row according to official figures.
It means that whichever party leads the next Welsh government will inherit an overall waiting list which is falling, albeit still higher than it was before the pandemic.
The NHS features heavily in party manifestos.
Labour says it would meet the 26-week waiting time target by the end of the next Senedd term and is proposing a £4bn hospital building programme.
The Conservatives say they would declare a "health emergency" to focus resources on the service and clear waiting time backlogs by 2030.
Plaid Cymru pledges to deliver 10 new surgical hubs.
He has since said he would like to eradicate waits of more than two years within 12 months and bring the overall waiting list down to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the parliament.
Reform says it would launch a comprehensive emergency action plan involving an expansion of surgical hubs.
The Lib Dems want to spend an extra £300m on social care to ease pressure on the NHS and would be prepared to put a penny on income tax to pay for it.
The Greens say that investment would shift into prevention and primary and community care to ease the pressure on hospitals in the longer term.
The challenge of reducing waiting lists in Wales comes against a backdrop of an NHS that is also failing to meet key performance targets for urgent care and cancer care.
The latest figures from February showed just 63.7% of patients spent less than four hours in emergency departments from arrival until they were admitted, transferred or discharged.
The target of 95% has never been met.
Meanwhile the latest cancer care statistics showed that in January, 57% of cases started their first definitive treatment within 62 days of first being suspected of cancer, well below the target of 75%.
The Royal College of Surgeons in Wales argued planned care services "have never fully recovered from the impact of Covid-19, leaving patients facing long waits for care, and staff working under sustained pressure".
It said these "combined challenges make clear that longer-term, system-wide change is essential" to prevent long treatment waits from becoming "entrenched".
Welsh surgeons, according to the professional body, also "report higher levels of theatre access challenges, burnout and stress than colleagues elsewhere in the UK".
The college insisted the next Welsh government must put surgical hubs at the centre of its approach to reducing the waiting list backlog.
It calls for a "minimum of four" hubs should be established at "existing sites" within the first year of the next government taking the office.
