The Welsh Government has unveiled a £120 million funding package aimed at reducing NHS waiting times and addressing the growing backlog in planned care across Wales.
The investment will support the implementation of the new Planned Care Recovery Plan, which aims to reduce the overall waiting list by 200,000 patients, eliminate all two-year waits, and bring diagnostic waiting times below eight weeks by March 2026.
Health Secretary Jeremy Miles said the latest funding would help accelerate the progress already made in recent months. NHS Wales has seen a two-thirds reduction in the longest waits over the past four months. The funding will enable more outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests and surgical procedures, including more than 20,000 cataract operations.
Alongside the financial support, all health boards are being asked to adopt changes designed to improve productivity and consistency across services. These requirements include:
• Reducing automatic follow-up appointments and allowing patients to request them only when needed
• Achieving a minimum of seven cataract procedures per surgical list by the end of September 2025
• Streamlining care pathways by removing unnecessary steps that do not improve patient outcomes
The Welsh Government expects these measures to strengthen service delivery while making the healthcare system more efficient and sustainable. Officials emphasised the importance of working with health boards to ensure that patients across Wales benefit from faster, safer, and more accessible care.
However, the Welsh Conservatives criticised the government’s ambitions, arguing that they fall short of what is needed. They highlighted that the promise to eliminate two-year waits was originally made more than two years ago and claimed that patients in Wales remain significantly more likely to wait over two years than those in England.
The opposition party called for a formal declaration of a health emergency and proposed diverting resources away from non-essential projects to focus entirely on reducing waiting times. They maintained that no patient should have to wait over a year for treatment.
The funding announcement is the latest step in the Welsh Government’s broader plan to modernise NHS services, increase capacity, and improve patient outcomes across the country.
