Just over 7,400 pathways were waiting more than two years, almost 90% lower than at the peak, and a 27.4% decrease on May.

The figures also show a reduction of more than 2,000 on the overall waiting list.

For the first time, the Welsh Government is publishing provisional waiting times data for the following month to provide people with more up-to-date information. The provisional data for July indicates a slight increase in long waits, but the overall trend continues downwards.

Health secretary, Jeremy Miles, said: ‘It is encouraging to see the number of people waiting more than two years is at its lowest for more than four years. And I'm pleased to see a fall in the overall waiting list too.

‘We expect to see some fluctuations in the number of long waits from month to month – that reflects in part the variation in the numbers of people who came onto the list two years ago, but I am confident there will be significant further reductions by the end of the next quarter in September, keeping us on track with our plan to bring down the longest waits.'

The Welsh Government is supporting health boards with a £120m plan to reduce the overall waiting list by 200,000, eliminate two-year waits and restore the eight-week diagnostic waiting target by March 2026. Health boards have also introduced a series of measures to improve productivity and core activity.

The performance figures also show emergency NHS services continue to respond to very high levels of demand. In July, there were just under 101,900 attendances to all emergency departments in Wales – an average of 3,287 a day - the highest number on record.

The latest data also shows there were fewer ambulance patient handover delays at emergency departments in every health board in July compared to June 2025 and a year ago.

In July, there was an 18% reduction in the time it takes for the ambulance service to transfer patients to the care of an emergency department, compared with the previous month, and a fall of 36.1% compared to June 2024. Handover times are at their lowest since July 2021. 

More than half of people (59.7%) were handed over to the care of emergency department staff in less than 45 minutes in July, an increase of 6.1% compared with the previous month.

July was the first month the new purple and red categories were introduced by the Welsh Ambulance Service for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and life-threatening emergencies for people at high risk of cardiac or respiratory arrest, respectively.

There were 814 purple calls, just over 2% of all calls, and 4,449 red calls, which accounted for 12.6% of all calls.

Miles added: ‘I am pleased to see continued improvements in the ambulance handover times and while there was a dip in the cancer performance, this is the fifth month in a row it has been above 60%.'