Covid: Welsh NHS waiting lists rise 'significantly'

Waiting lists in the Welsh NHS have risen significantly since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, Wales' health minister has said.

Vaughan Gething said lists had risen 9% between March and August.

About 140,000 have been waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment by the end of last month, the Senedd's health committee was told.

NHS Wales boss Andrew Goodall said safety concerns are reducing the number of patients being seen.

It comes as planned surgery at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital is stopped because of a Covid-19 outbreak.

Health services were disrupted at the start of the Covid-19 crisis, with planned surgery cancelled in March.

Vaughan Gething said the the total waiting list size in Wales had increased by "just over 9% at the end of August compared to March with a significant increase in the number of people waiting over 36 weeks".

Mr Goodall, NHS Wales chief executive, said that despite a "reversion to more normal levels of activity" the number of people waiting more than 36 weeks had "deteriorated".

He said outpatient and elective surgery had dropped to "about 50% of normal levels".

"They have increased from where we were in March and April, but it has been much harder to find a way of reverting [to] those levels of activity."

"There are delays that are reducing the number of patients that have been seen because we are trying to have as safe an environment as possible."`

However, he said a recovery had been seen in the number of cancer referrals in recent months.

"I think we have seen a return to levels of cancer activity that feel more appropriate to what our system should achieve.

"I don't think we've quite recovered yet to the levels of activity that we would have been seeing pre-Covid.

"But there are a much higher number of patients being treated on cancer pathways, for example, than when we were seeing the pressures emerge in March, April and May."

Andrew Goodall told the committee that the number of patients in hospital beds with Covid-19 had risen by 60% in just seven days.

He said there were 550 patients in NHS beds for Covid-related reasons.

"We've seen a 90% increase in the number of Covid-related patients in critical care, that's gone up from 16 to 34," the NHS Wales chief executive said.

It means that, for the first time, expansion plans for critical care were being used, he said.