STAFFING constraints and difficulties getting patients out of hospitals are adding to pressures on the NHS in Wales, the government has said.

It comes as the latest performance data shows the number of people on treatment lists continues to grow - there are now around 722,000 names on waiting lists nationwide.

The Welsh Government, which runs the NHS, said "huge numbers" of people were treated in May "despite the increase in demand" on services and emergency care.

But the Conservatives dismissed any idea of "progress" in tackling the backlog, which has grown continuously since the beginning of the pandemic, and urged ministers to "get a grip on the NHS and stop breaking all the wrong records".

A&E departments are expected to admit, transfer or discharge 95 per cent of people within four hours of their arrival.

Figures for June show the current performance across Wales is 66.4 per cent, and the rate has generally declined since the pandemic began.

In Gwent, the picture is better, with 71.5 per cent of patients seen within the four-hour target time. At the Grange Hospital, where A&E only receives the most complex and urgent emergencies, the figure was 51.1 per cent, but at the region's minor injury units the performance rate was 91.4 per cent.

A similar 95 per cent target exists for people waiting to be referred for treatment in the NHS within 26 weeks. Figures for May show just 53.9 of people were being seen nationwide in that time - again, the figures for Gwent were higher, and at 61.4 per cent were the best in Wales.

For cancer patients, the government target is for 75 per cent of patients to start treatment within 62 days, but figures for May show the average across Wales falls short, at 53 per cent. The figure for Gwent is slightly higher, at 53.4 per cent.

Commenting on the regional figures, a spokesperson for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said problems with emergency care services were not "exclusive" to Gwent and "reflect the unprecedented pressures on the NHS as a whole, across Wales and the UK, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic".

They added: "Although there is room for much improvement going forward, it is reassuring to see that our health board is performing well in Wales comparatively and in the context of the pressures, including The Grange University Hospital, which is unique as it has the only emergency department in Wales that doesn't treat minor injuries.

"We would like to thank our amazing staff for their efforts in caring for our patients during these difficult times and we hope these improving figures give them a much-needed morale boost."

June was the 13th consecutive month in which the Welsh Ambulance Service received more than 100 of the most serious types of callout. It responded to 50.8 per cent of those calls within eight minutes, short of the 65 per cent target. The government has announced plans to hire 100 new frontline staff to help ease ambulance pressures.

Commenting on the national figures, the Welsh Government pointed to some positive news, including reductions in the longest waits for treatments and May having the highest monthly number of inpatient and day case treatments since the start of the pandemic.

But the Tories said national increases in the waiting list backlog and ambulance waits meant "Labour cannot call this progress".

The Welsh NHS Confederation, meanwhile, said more structural changes were needed.

"Unless we can improve patient flow and speed up hospital discharge by alleviating the pressure on and creating capacity in social care, we’ll continue to see a large number of patients waiting longer than we’d like them to for both urgent and emergency care and planned care," said confederation assistant director Nesta Lloyd-Jones.

The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which runs NHS services in Gwent, was contacted for comment.