Hospital appointments will be done online - live updates as Wales' health minister details plan to cut waiting lists

More hospital patients will see consultants on internet calls online instead of in person in a bid to cut waiting times in Wales, Health Minister Eluned Morgan will reveal later today. She is publishing details of the Welsh Government's plan to end waiting times of more than a year by spring 2025.

In the face of an NHS crisis in Wales with ambulances forced to queue outside A&Es for up to a day, and patients routinely waiting years for treatment, the Welsh Government's plan admits that the year-long waits will continue for at least another three years. To start to reduce those waits it plans to move online 35% of first appointments, and 50% of follow up appointments.

The plans aim to help the Welsh NHS manage the huge backlog of appointments and treatments which have built up during the pandemic. In February there were a record 691,885 patients on the waiting list, with more than a quarter of a million (251,647) of them on it for nine months or more. You can read the full story here.

Read more:Welsh NHS described as 'broken' as waiting times crisis deepens

The health minister said the recovery plan aims to ensure no-one will be waiting more than a year for treatment in most specialties by spring 2025. A series of stretching targets for health boards will also be set out in the plan. She also told BBC Radio Wales that one of the priorities was to keep experienced staff in the system.

Eluned Morgan, who visited some A&E units in Wales over the weekend to see the pressures first hand, said: "We will be transforming the way that we are providing services so we will have to do things differently, and we won't be able to tackle this backlog unless we change the way we do things. We will be doing a lot more virtual