The Welsh Assembly has an ongoing campaign to dramatically reduce the waiting lists of patients waiting more than 18 months for operations such as knee and hip replacements.

Jane Hutt said the assembly's goal is on course

The Assembly's target for patients waiting more than 18 months for orthopaedic surgery rose from 92 at the end of July to 281 at the end of August.

But Assembly Health Secretary Jane Hutt said that August was a blip in the overall statistics, in part caused by staff and patient holidays.

The latest figures showed that, in August, a total of 235,000 out-patients were now waiting to see a consultant.

The waiting list in July stood at 229,773 and 12 months ago, the figure was 203,000.

We are getting distressed and demoralised at our continued failure to act with sufficient power to deal with this problem

Witek Mintowt-Czyz, consultant

The problems have been compounded by a 23% fall in the number of hospital beds during the past 10 years, a decrease of 4,205.

Staff vacancies in the NHS in Wales also increased between October 2001 and March 2002, according to assembly figures.

And by the end of March, 1,747 NHS posts had been empty for more than three months, a rise of nearly 300 on six months earlier.

The majority of vacant posts are in nursing, midwifery and health visitors, but 160 consultant posts also remain empty.

Declan O'Doherty: 'Problems growing'

One positive statistic showed that just three cardiac patients were waiting more than 12 months for surgery.

One leading orthopaedic surgeon from the Royal Gwent Hospital said the overall situation was "dire".

Witek Mintowt-Czyz said the situation was getting worse not better and he admitted to cancelling patient treatment on Tuesday because of a lack of beds at the Royal Gwent.

He claimed that as a result, morale was continuing to fall in the NHS.

'Obsession'

"We are swimming against a tide that is flowing far too strongly for us," he told BBC Good Evening Wales.

"Some things are getting better, but overall the situation is extremely gloomy. We are getting distressed and demoralised at our continued failure to act with sufficient power to deal with this problem.

"It is very distressing for patients. I had one on the telephone this morning, wanting to know why his operation was cancelled yesterday.

"It was not the first time it had happened to him. He cannot be messed around like this."

Assembly pledge

He added: "If you have a painful hip or knee, you do not want treatment in 18 months time, you want it now."

Mr Mintowt-Czyz said an "obsession" with short-term figures did nothing to help the underlying problems involved in treatment.

The assembly pledged to reverse the rising waiting list trend, highlighted in a report in September 2001, which showed the number of people in Wales awaiting their first outpatient appointment had doubled since Labour came to power in 1997.

Consultant surgeon Declan O'Doherty added: "We put more people on the operating list than we can actually operate on.

"All we can do is clear the long wait patients and those behind are coming up in increasing numbers."