The latest NHS statistics for Wales have revealed that Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board had the highest proportion of referral to treatment waiting longer than one and two years in May, standing at 27.4% and 3.3% respectively.
Last week, it was revealed that NHS treatment waiting lists in Wales have increased to 796,100 pathways, the equivalent of nearly 1-in-4 Welsh people.
In Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board the figure stands at 199,698, with 98,579 waiting up to 26 weeks, 19,557 waiting between 26 and 36 weeks, and 81,562 waiting over 36 weeks, which is 30% of the overall waits in Wales - the health board only covers 24% of Wales’s population.
The previous Labour Health Minister, now First Minister, Eluned Morgan promised to eliminate these waits for the last two years (by March 2023 and again by March 2024), but has failed to meet these targets.
The quarterly release of NHS performance for Welsh local health boards also showed that the health board did not meet any of the performance targets in May and June.
In emergency departments, the figures showed that Betsi Cadwaladr had the lowest 4-hour performance (58.0%) and the highest 12-hour breaches (16.7%).
The health board also had the highest percentage of emergency department patients waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged in June 2025.
Meanwhile, for cancer services, Cardiff and Vale had the highest proportion of patients starting treatment within 62 days (69.6%), and Betsi Cadwaladr the lowest (51.2%).
Commenting, Clwyd West MS Darren Millar said:
“It is quite frankly a scandal that patients in North Wales continue to be let down in this way.
“Month after month this health board continues to fail residents and they have understandably had enough.
“These excessively long waits for treatment are putting lives at risk, and whilst the figures for Wales overall are bad, it is deeply concerning that Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has not met any of its performance targets.
“The Labour Welsh Government need to get to grips with these failures once and for all by putting their money where their mouths are and paying for the NHS that the people of Wales deserve.”
