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NHS Waiting Lists
Is this devolved to Wales?
Devolved
The necessary powers are not reserved to the UK Parliament in Schedule 7A of the Government of Wales Act 2006.
Shared Powers
Insert a specific explanation of the powers situation for this issue here.
Not Devolved
The powers over this are reserved to the UK Parliament in Schedule 7A of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (Specific Section/Number/Clause).
Long waits for NHS treatment are a chronic issue which has faced every single Welsh Government since devolution. Waiting times for NHS patients in Wales have been longer than in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland for several years1.
While there have been falls in waiting times over the last year or so, they remain stubbornly high overall and treatment time targets are routinely missed.
There’s no single reason why.
The Covid-19 pandemic increased waiting times everywhere because of in-person appointment restrictions and emergency measures to treat serious Covid cases in hospital. This backlog has carried over, but waiting times in Wales were already longer than elsewhere in the UK.
Wales has a small number of general hospitals, meaning fewer accident & emergency (A&E) departments and longer waits for diagnosis and treatment.
There are also long-standing issues with what are called “delayed transfers of care”. This involves patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but are unable to do so because their social care arrangements (usually arranged by local councils) are delayed. This situation hasn’t been helped by the loss of beds in local community hospitals, which have traditionally been used as a “step-down” from general hospitals.
Since 2019-20, Wales has lost the equivalent of 2,000 hospital beds, and of those which are available, up to 87% are used at any given time, giving little wriggle room for new admissions2.
As of May 2026 – the start of the current Senedd term – there were 542,600 patients on NHS waiting lists, with around 35% of these waiting longer than 26 weeks for treatment3.
There’s a target for 95% of A&E admissions to be seen within 4 hours. As of May 2025, this figure stood at 63%, and it’s been at around 60-70% since at least June 2021.
There’s a full summary of the available statistics in the charts below.
Note: A “pathway” means a course of treatment, not a patient. Each patient may be on several “treatment pathways” at the same time.
NHS waiting lists: pathways waiting 26 weeks, 36 weeks, one year and two years,September 2011 onwards (custom table; May- 2025-June 2026)
Emergency departments: performance against waiting times targets, May 2025-July 2026 (performance against 4 hour target, Percentage of patients who spend less than the target time in an emergency department)
Cancer waiting times: patients starting treatment and patients informed they do not have cancer, May 2025-June 2026 (percentage of patients starting their first treatment within 62 days of first being suspected of cancer)
Diagnostic services: pathway waiting times, August 2024 onwards (May 2025-June 2026), pathways with waits more than 8 weeks for diagnostic services
Costs & Economic Impact
NHS Waiting Times-
1 billion was committed during the Sixth Senedd to deal with post-pandemic waiting list backlogs.
-
100 million committed to deal with the longest waits for 2026-27.
Who has raised this at the Senedd?
Mabon ap Gwynfor MS
Health & Care Minister
Rhun ap Iorwerth MS
First Minister
Beca Brown MS
Backbencher
Sara Crowley MS
Backbencher
Donna Cushing MS
Backbencher
James Evans MS
Chair: Environment & Rural Affairs
Ben McKenna MS
Shadow Health Minister
Dan Thomas MS
Backbencher
Nigel Williams MS
Backbencher
Llŷr Powell MS
Reform UK Whip
Ken Skates MS
Labour Group Leader
Natasha Asghar MS
Backbencher
Darren Millar MS
Conservative Group Leader
Sam Rowlands MS
Chair: Finance
Mabon ap Gwynfor MS
Health & Care Minister
Rhun ap Iorwerth MS
First Minister
Beca Brown MS
Backbencher
Sara Crowley MS
Backbencher
Donna Cushing MS
Backbencher
James Evans MS
Chair: Environment & Rural Affairs
Dan Thomas MS
Backbencher
Nigel Williams MS
Backbencher
Llŷr Powell MS
Reform UK Whip
Ben McKenna MS
Shadow Health Minister
Ken Skates MS
Labour Group Leader
Natasha Asghar MS
Backbencher
Darren Millar MS
Conservative Group Leader
Sam Rowlands MS
Chair: Finance
What are the party positions on this?
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
Plaid Cymru’s backbenchers are supportive of the Welsh Government’s proposals to cut waiting times, though they have specific concerns about the lagging performance of some Local Health Boards – particularly Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board.
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
While supporting the principle of cutting waiting times, Reform members are critical of mixed/confusing messages on how long the Welsh Government expects it to take to cut waiting times to a more manageable level.
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
Labour has welcomed falls in waiting times during the 2025-26 period, which they tie to measures they took whilst in government. They expect this trend to continue.
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
The Conservatives back the principle of cutting waiting times. They are sceptical that spending more money on cutting lists – without detail on how this would work – is any different from the approach previous (Labour-led) Welsh governments took.
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
The Greens haven’t said anything on waiting lists in general yet, but have raised concerns about related issues, such as staff shortages.
- Supportive of action
- Opposed
- Neutral/No Opinion
Jane Dodds hasn’t said anything on waiting lists in general yet, but has raised concerns about related issues, such as the loss of community hospital beds.
Who is responsible?
Mabon ap Gwynfor MS
Health & Care Minister
What have ministers said?
What's being done about this?
Plaid Cymru included several policy promises relating to NHS waiting times in its 2026 manifesto.
This includes establishing 10 surgical and diagnostic centres around Wales, a general commitment to increase the number of available hospital beds and more local interventions such as a Rapid Diagnostic Centre for cancer in Powys.
An expert group was set up in June 2026 to flesh out detailed plans for the regional hubs5.
The Health Minister and First Minister have also made commitments to end the longest waits for treatment (2 years+) “within months” of coming into office. In September 2026, this was confirmed as meaning by May 2027. Also, they have committed to reducing waiting lists to pre-Covid pandemic levels before the end of the term (April 2030).
On 2nd September 2026, the Health Minister announced a new round of measures to reduce waiting times6. These include earlier clinical reviews, faster scanning and testing (through increased spending on diagnostic services), and routine follow-up appointments only being booked if doctors believe they are clinically necessary.
No, though it will rely on opposition support to get any budget changes through and release extra funding.
The first in-year (supplementary) budget for the 2026-27 financial year included £100 million towards measures to cut waiting lists, but the Senedd voted to reject it in July 2026.
As noted, there’s a government commitment to cut waiting times to pre-pandemic levels by 2030.
The First Minister has made a commitment, on record, to eliminating 2-year waiting times by May 2027.
What have the Senedd's Committees said?
Nothing has been discussed yet.
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Relevant Votes
Nothing to see yet.
Further Reading
- Full Fact (19th July 2024). “NHS performance: how do the four nations compare?“
- Digital Health & Care Wales. “Hospital Data: NHS Beds dashboard“.
- Welsh Government (23rd July 2026). “NHS Activity & Performance (May & June 2026)“.
- Senedd Research (12th September 2025). “NHS Waiting Times in Wales: Promises Made, Targets Missed?”
- Welsh Government (29th June 2026). “Expert group to plan new surgery hubs to cut NHS waiting times“
- Welsh Government (2nd September 2026). “Patients to benefit from faster diagnosis and treatment under NHS Wales reforms“
