DOZENS of patients requiring hospital treatment outside Gwent are waiting longer than anticipated - and the delays are worrying health chiefs who are working towards ambitious new targets.

By the end of December, no-one in Wales should have to wait more than 26 weeks for treatment from the time they are referred on by their GP.

Within this 26-week period, known as the referral-to-treatment time (RTT), there are a series of what are called component waits, for the likes of first outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests, alternatives to treatment such as physiotherapy, and treatment itself.

The target component wait for treatment is 14 weeks, and the latest available figures - for the end of May - show that 127 Gwent patients had waited longer than this.

But the problem currently lies almost exclusively beyond Gwent, with just four of these patients having waited longer than four weeks for treatment in the area's hospitals.

More than half - 70 - are waiting for treatment at hospitals run by Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, where well-documented problems with capacity in a number of specialties have continued into 2009/10.

The problem appears particularly acute in neurosurgery, where 36 Gwent patients had waited more than 14 weeks by the end of May.

Twenty Gwent patients had also waited longer than 14 weeks for specialist orthopaedic treatment.

There are also problems with a handful of patients who require specialist treatments at hospitals in England. English NHS trusts no longer recognise component waiting times within what is now an 18-week RTT in England.

Though they insist they are largely meeting that 18-week target, some Welsh patients appear to be slipping through the net.