4. What is the Minister doing to reduce waiting times at Glan Clwyd Hospital? OQ59754

Thanks very much. Waiting times for both elective and emergency care have shown improvements over the last year. There's obviously still work to be done, and, as part of the special measures escalation, I've set clear targets for the next 90 days to improve waiting times. I expect to see continued improvements.

Thank you for your response, Minister. The reason I want to raise this question this afternoon is that I was contacted recently by a very concerned Vale of Clwyd resident, who informed me of a 55-hour waiting time at the A&E department at Glan Clwyd Hospital recently. And just to repeat that: 55 hours. That's over two days, Minister, and, quite frankly, it's an obscene amount of time for my constituents to wait for treatment, from arriving at ED to being seen and treated by the relevant health professionals. And this is further evidence to my constituents that the Welsh Labour Government is failing the people of the Vale of Clwyd and failing patients in managing the perennial issues at Betsi Cadwaladr health board. So, do you think that a 55-hour waiting time is acceptable, Minister—and I sincerely hope that you think they are not—and what specific arm of these special measures of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is laser focused on tackling waiting times at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, as my constituents have had enough and need leadership, actions and answers?

So, look, 55 hours is utterly unacceptable. It's utterly unacceptable. We had some issues earlier this week with some very long waits in Wrexham, and immediately we got on to it and tried to clear the system. But, actually, if you look at the overall picture, and so you are going to get individuals, which is still unacceptable, but the overall picture is improving. Now, it might not feel like that to many people, but, just to give you some information, over the last 12 months, the performance in terms of the four-hour emergency department has increased from 42 per cent to 56 per cent. It's not great, but it's definitely going in the right direction. And in terms of the 12-hour waits, that was reduced from May 2022 to May 2023—we've seen a 14 per cent improvement there. So, we're definitely heading in the right direction.

But I just want to give a shout-out to Betsi for some of the improvements they are making—and they are genuinely are. And, do you know what, it's really important that we all celebrate together when that happens, because the last thing this board needs is more people talking it down. So, the improvement in relation to out-patients in Betsi has been quite, quite astounding. So, since January, we've seen a 43 per cent improvement in terms of the number of out-patients waiting for a year. That's an incredible—an incredible—effort by the people in that health board, and I'd like to thank them for that incredible effort.