September 03, 2026 - 276 views
Patients in Wales are promised faster diagnosis and treatment under a new programme of NHS reforms backed by an additional £145 million in funding.
The Welsh Government says the plan is intended to eliminate two-year waits for planned treatment and bring the overall NHS waiting list back to pre-pandemic levels before the end of the current Senedd term.
The funding includes £100 million specifically aimed at reducing waiting times, £25 million for new surgical and diagnostic hubs and £20 million for essential maintenance across the NHS estate.
The Government says the money will be accompanied by changes to the way NHS Wales operates, rather than simply being used to create additional appointments.
Health Boards will be expected to work together to identify and treat people who have been waiting the longest, with additional surgical capacity, including weekend activity, directed towards specialties where waiting times are greatest.
New standards will also mean patients who have waited the longest should generally be treated next, unless there is a clear clinical reason why another patient needs to be prioritised.
Another major part of the plan is to change what happens after patients are referred.
Referrals will be reviewed earlier so that people can be directed towards the most appropriate test, advice or treatment without unnecessary stages in the process. The Government says this should reduce delays caused by patients moving between different parts of the health service.
There will also be changes to follow-up appointments. Patients who are stable and no longer need routine appointments could instead be encouraged to contact services when they need further support. The Welsh Government says this could release tens of thousands of appointments for other patients, including people waiting for their first assessment.
Diagnostic capacity is another key part of the programme, with investment in scanning, testing and digital tools intended to reduce the time between referral and diagnosis.
The announcement comes as NHS Wales continues to face a substantial backlog.
The latest published national waiting-list data currently runs to June 2026, with official statistics showing that long waits have been falling but remain a significant problem. In May, the Welsh Government said 666,700 patient pathways were waiting to start treatment, including just under 2,600 that had been waiting more than two years.
The picture also varies considerably between health boards. In the latest detailed figures, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board had the highest proportion of referral-to-treatment pathways waiting more than a year, at 18.6%, and the highest proportion waiting more than two years, at 1.4%.
That makes the reforms particularly significant in North Wales, where the health board continues to deal with some of the longest planned-care waits in Wales.
The Welsh Government has previously acknowledged that overall waiting-time performance is not where it needs to be. At the same time, demand elsewhere in the NHS remains high: emergency departments recorded more than 104,000 attendances across Wales in July, the highest monthly figure on record.
The Government's approach is therefore aimed at tackling the backlog while trying to prevent planned care from simply building up again.
Health and Care Minister Mabon ap Gwynfor said waiting two years for planned care was unacceptable and argued that additional funding had to be accompanied by permanent changes in the way Health Boards work.
He said patients should receive timely advice, diagnosis and treatment through services designed around their needs rather than organisational boundaries.
National clinical directors of planned care, Richard Egan and Ken Harries, said the programme could provide the service transformation needed to deliver high-quality and more efficient care.
The Government says the longer-term ambition is not simply to clear the current backlog but to create a more sustainable system, with surgical and diagnostic hubs, better use of existing capacity and earlier clinical decision-making helping to prevent waiting lists from returning to current levels.
The reforms will now be delivered through individual Health Boards, with progress expected to be monitored against the national objectives.
For patients, the immediate test will be whether the changes translate into fewer months spent waiting for scans, consultations and operations – particularly for those who have already been waiting the longest.
