Earlier this month we reported on how COVID-19 has made waiting times for planned NHS care in Wales worse and how the NHS can take this once in a generation opportunity to build back better. A thread on what this means 1/12 https://twitter.com/WalesAudit/status/1308010607111811073

First up – a basic explainer as to what waiting lists and waiting times are, from the report. 2/12

On 13 March 2020, the Welsh Government announced that it would be halting all non-urgent planned care treatment in hospitals to prepare for the impending wave of COVID 19 patients. The NHS has continued to treat the most urgent patients 3/12

Thousands of people in Wales now face very long waits for diagnosis and treatment. At the end of May, around 148,000 patients had waited more than six months (up from 77,000 in Jan). Of those, 79,000 were waiting for their first outpatient appointment (was 33,000 in Jan). 4/12

Long waits were already a problem for many patients in Wales. We reported lots of issues back in 2015 and made a series of recommendations to improve the position. Many of these were about whole system change to move away from a short-term focus https://www.audit.wales/system/files/publications/nhs_waiting_times_main_report_english_accessible.pdf . 5/12

When we revisited the issues over the past year, we found some progress had been made in specific areas but there had not been the sort of whole system change that is needed to create a sustainable planned care system 6/12

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the NHS in Wales was already struggling with growing waiting times for planned care. As this chart shows, there was a sharp deterioration during 2019-20 7/12

This deterioration was partly due to new tax rules which made NHS staff less likely to work extra shifts. Which exposes the underlying problem of the NHS’ reliance on short term funding initiatives to manage core demand 8/12

The NHS now faces the challenge of tackling a large backlog of patients whilst still dealing with the effects of the pandemic. We set out ten opportunities for the NHS in Wales as it looks to reintroduce planned care. 9/12

The five immediate opportunities identified as planned care restarts involve: 10/12

The five opportunities identified for the longer term involve: 11/12

Having read this thread, please take a look at the full report, it is really short and easy to read https://www.audit.wales/system/files/publications/10_opportunities_planned_care_Eng.pdf ENDS