Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 1 May 2019.
Diolch, Llywydd. The Minister will know that in the years 2017-18, 100,000 ophthalmology patients' appointments were cancelled, often at very short notice, and that figure was a rise of 5.5 per cent on two years before. Those who have been waiting for twice as long as they should for a follow-up appointment were 35,000 in December 2018, up from 15,000 in April 2015. The latest figures that I have been able to find for those people who go blind whilst waiting for treatment in Wales is 48. That was back in 2014 in a Royal National Institute of Blind People report. Is it not a scandal that a single person in Wales should go blind whilst waiting for treatment by the NHS?