Wales’ health minister has vowed to cut NHS waiting lists that have reached record levels this year while announcing a £28m funding boost to tackle the issue.

Health Secretary Jeremy Miles said the £28m in extra funding would “help the NHS cut the longest waiting times” and will pay for more evening and weekend appointments and regional working to target waiting times in specialties such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology, general surgery and gynaecology.

Health boards will also free-up outpatient appointments for new patients to be seen by reducing the number of automatic follow-ups in cases where they are not needed.

The Welsh Government said it is hoped the interventions will cut the number of people waiting more than two years for treatment, waiting times for a first outpatient appointment and ensure more people receive diagnostic tests in eight weeks.

Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Jeremy Miles said: “Reducing waiting times is a national priority – for people across Wales, for us and the NHS. This new funding will be used by health boards to deliver a range of schemes that will start almost immediately.

“They will target the longest waits in orthopaedics, general surgery, ophthalmology and gynaecology by increasing capacity for more people to be seen and treated through overtime and more regional working.

“The NHS is working very hard to reduce the backlog, which built up during the pandemic – this is additional funding, over and above the recovery money we make available every year, to support the NHS to cut the longest waits and improve access to planned care.”

Official figures for June show 615,341 patients were waiting for 791,511 treatments to take place – both the highest numbers on record.

The estimated number of people waiting for treatment is up by 12 per cent since March 2022.

So-called patient pathways – which account for patients waiting for more than one treatment – have risen by more than 80 per cent since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last month, First Minister Eluned Morgan vowed to tackle record waiting lists in Wales’ NHS and said she wanted to pressure health board chief executives, “who are paid significant sums of money”, over the care they provide.

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) warned earlier this month that the NHS is “still struggling with workforce shortages, increasing demand for services, and ongoing issues with patient flow that are affecting both planned and emergency care.”