Wales unemployment: Are long-term sickness and NHS wait times linked?

Vaughan Gething: "There isn't a simple one-shot answer that says 'this will fix everything'"

Long NHS waiting times may not be why so many people are off work sick, Economy Minister Vaughan Gething has said.

Figures published last week showed 159,000 people could not work because of a long-term sickness - the most in almost 17 years.

Days later, about 30,000 people were revealed to have waited more than two years for hospital treatment.

Mr Gething said it was "not at all clear" waiting lists were to blame.

"I don't think you can say there is a direct link between waiting lists and that group of people and the scale of the challenge we've got," he told the BBC Politics Wales programme.

• Wales unemployment rate sees biggest rise in UK

• End of an era as 700 jobs go at chicken factory

"Part of the challenge is we knew before the pandemic we had a larger number of people than the rest of the UK as a proportion who weren't active and seeking employment.

"With the pandemic we have seen a rise in the number of people who have left the labour market - and it isn't just that people have chosen they want a different balance between work and other parts of their life.

"Healthcare is often the largest single reason."

Helping people with long-term health conditions was part of an employment plan published by Mr Gething last year.

"How we tackle it is individual for people, to understand whether it's physical health, whether it's mental health, how you help people through that and how you help people with a range of opportunities to return to work.

"There isn't a simple one-shot answer that says 'this will fix everything'."

Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, said: "There are now three times as many people waiting two years in Wales than there are people waiting 18 months in England, despite England having 18 times our population."

And he called on the Welsh government to urgently tackle long-term sickness levels which was "hampering Wales' economic potential".

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for health and care, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said: "Waiting a long time for treatment is blighting too many lives. It affects quality of life, and the inability to get timely diagnosis or treatment allows existing problems to get worse. That's bound to affect some people's ability to work.

"The latest missed targets makes it even clearer that we need a rethink from Welsh government on how to get those waiting times down."