A MAJOR reduction during March in the number of Gwent patients waiting more than 36 weeks for treatment has been partially cancelled out by a big increase during April.

After falling by a little over 1,000 in March, to 2,243, the number of patients waiting longer than 36 weeks had by April 30 risen by 527, to 2,777.

The increase is mirrored in health boards across Wales, and revealed in the latest Welsh Government-issued referral to treatment times (RTT) figures.

And it illustrates a situation that, despite the hopes and aims of health bosses, happens to a greater or lesser extent every year - the number of patients waiting longer than 36 weeks for treatment tends to reduce during the final quarter of an NHS Wales financial year, and particularly during March, only to begin to rise again in the opening months of the next.

The end of 2014/15 and the beginning of 2015/16, appear no different, with big reductions in waits of longer than 36 weeks during February and March, as health boards spent extra money provided by the Welsh Government to help drive down waiting times, followed by an increase in April after that money was spent.

Several years ago, there was almost a race to eliminate by the end of March a backlog of waits of longer than 36 weeks built during the year, with achievement of that target worn almost as a badge of honour by health boards.

The former Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust, and its successor Aneurin Bevan University Health Board regularly ended a financial year with no treatment waits of longer than 36 weeks, and during the whole of 2011/12 - and unique in Wales - the latter managed to maintain that position.

As the screw has tightened on NHS Wales budgets however, and demand has grown, that achievement has proven unsustainable.

In recent years, the best Wales' health boards have been able to do is to reduce treatment waits of more than 36 weeks by March 31.

The Welsh Government's target is that no-one should have to wait more than 36 weeks for treatment, from the date of their referral, this being the aforementioned RTT.

Across Wales in April, waits of more than 36 weeks rose by 3,815, to 22,753. the latter number equating to around one-in-19 patients on waiting lists.

In Gwent, orthopaedics continues to account for the largest number of long waits, with 1,570 patients having waited more than 36 weeks by April 30, 175 more than at the end of March. There was a bigger monthly increase however, in ophthalmology (up 196, to 697).

Both specialties benefited from the health board having organised for 450 operations to be carried out at an NHS centre in Bristol during January-March.

That arrangement has now ended, though a similar programme is likely later this year, part of a concerted attempt to tackle long waits.

The health board wants to reduce the total number of patients waiting longer than 36 weeks to less than 900 by the end of next March, on the way to a longer term elimination of such long waits.

More short term is the aim of ensuring that no patients wait longer than a year for treatment. There are currently more than 400, and the health board wants to have none by the end of November.