MORE than 300 Gwent patients requiring treatment in hospitals outside the area had waited more than the maximum 36 weeks by the end of May, the latest waiting times figures reveal.

All patients from Gwent scheduled for treatment in Gwent hospitals were treated inside 36 weeks target that month, the third month in a row that target was met.

But delays at hospitals in other areas, primarily in Cardiff, where some Gwent patients require their operations, has resulted in longer than planned waits.

The problem has largely been in orthopaedics, with 244 patients pencilled in for treatment outside Gwent having waited more than 36 weeks by the end of May.

All bar one of these were due to be treated by Cardiff and Vale Health Board, and the majority of the waits have been beyond 40 weeks.

The referral of orthopaedic patients to Cardiff is largely due to long-established trends and tends to involve patients from parts of Caerphilly county borough.

From the autumn, when the new £172 million Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr opens, Cardiff and Vale Health Board will no longer accept orthopaedic referrals from Gwent.

Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr will include orthopaedic surgery capacity, and Gwent health bosses are working to ensure that the increase in patients caused by the end of referrals to Cardiff does not cause waiting times in Gwent to increase.

Twenty-six weeks is the official maximum referral-to-treatment time across all specialties and at least 95 per cent of treatments should be started inside this period.

Normally, 36 weeks is allowed as a maximum only for complex cases where 26 weeks might prove too challenging, hence the five per cent leeway on the latter target.

Health boards have been urged to work toward eliminating treatment waits over 26 weeks as much as they can.

But such is the backlog in orthopaedics and other specialties, it will be well into 2012 before significant progress is made.

By the end of May in Gwent, almost 3,500 patients had waited 26 to 36 weeks across all specialties.