NATIONALISTS slammed the Welsh government’s handling of the crisis in Wales’s largest health board today as waiting times increased despite targets to reduce them within six months.

Last October, the Cardiff Bay administration released a special measure priorities report, which outlined its “expectations for improvements to be made over the next six months” by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

They included reducing 52-week waits at the first outpatient stage month on month, improving ambulance handover performance and ensuring that more emergency department patients would be seen within the national waiting time targets of four and 12 hours.

But Plaid Cymru health spokesman Mabon ap Gwynfor said the latest data from the health board showed that the figures relating to all these targets were going the wrong way.

The statistics shows that waits of over 52 weeks rose by 2,321, the number of hours lost due to delays in ambulance handovers increased by almost 2,000 and fewer patients were seen within the national emergency department waiting time targets.

“The Welsh government has not only failed to translate its ambitions into tangible progress, they have actually overseen a further deterioration in the quality of NHS services in north Wales from an already very low base,” Mr ap Gwynfor said.

Betsi Cadwaladr is the largest health board in Wales, with a budget of £1.87 billion and a workforce of over 19,000. The Welsh government placed it in special measures in February 2023.

The board had previously been in special measures for poor performance from 2015 to 2020, after which the Welsh government faced criticism for removing it from special measures and government oversight a year before the 2021 Senedd election.

“This typifies the broader inescapable reality that, despite the considerable turnover in ministerial personnel and hundreds of millions of pounds thrown at sticking plaster solutions, Labour’s record of mismanaging our precious health service is constant,” Mr ap Gwynfor said.

“When it comes to the performance of the health service, Labour in Wales only knows how to deal in the currency of failure. 

“With our radical plans for NHS governance reforms and reducing waiting lists, only Plaid Cymru can offer the fresh start that the people of north Wales desperately need.”

The Welsh government was asked to comment.