Welsh NHS Likely to Miss Key Waiting List Targets Ahead of Election

The Welsh NHS is expected to miss crucial targets aimed at reducing waiting lists and diagnostic wait times, according to recent analysis.

These targets were set by the Welsh Health Secretary in April 2025 and are due to be assessed with official figures published before the May 7 election.

The targets include cutting waiting lists by 200,000 patients, eliminating waits of two years or more, and ensuring no patient waits longer than eight weeks for diagnostic tests.

Despite progress, the analysis suggests these goals will not be fully met.

The Welsh government backed these targets with an additional £120 million in funding, intended to increase outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests, and treatments, including over 20,000 cataract operations.

However, the reductions required to meet the targets exceed any previously recorded monthly decreases in waiting patients.

This issue is significant as the state of the NHS has been a central topic during the election campaign.

The official statistics will provide voters with a final snapshot of NHS Wales' performance ahead of the vote.

The analysis highlights that a large proportion of patients waiting two years or longer for planned treatment are concentrated in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board area in north Wales, which accounts for about 69% of such cases.

In contrast, Swansea Bay health board reports no patients waiting that long.

Last autumn, NHS Wales leadership acknowledged that challenges in the north of the country would likely prevent the two-year wait target from being met across all regions.

Additionally, at the start of this year, over 48,000 patients had waited more than eight weeks for diagnostic tests, which is 10,000 more than the target set to reduce this number to zero.

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