£30m to help cut waiting times in Wales

Health Secretary Vaughan Gething has announced that £30 million of extra funding has been made available for health boards to reduce waiting lists across Wales.

£100 million of additional funding has been provided to NHS Wales over the last two years in an attempt to reduce referral to treatment, diagnostic and therapy waiting times.

Health boards have now submitted plans to access funding from the £30 million performance fund to reduce waiting lists by March next year, but will only receive the full amount of funding if they meet the agreed delivery targets to cut waiting lists.

Gething said: “This extra funding is available to health boards to help them reduce waiting times in key pressure areas. I recently announced our long term vision for the NHS and Social Care, A Healthier Wales, backed by £100 million to transform the way the service is delivered in the future. But in the short to medium term we also need to find new ways to reduce waiting times for patients who have already waited beyond our targets. Health boards will need to meet the targets they set out in order to receive the full funding. I expect to see significant improvements on waiting times as we did in the first two years of this fund.”