HEALTH boards in Wales are breaching waiting times for bowel cancer tests.

Figures released by StatsWales for February 2017 showed that Aneurin Bevan Health Board is one of the four health boards with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than eight weeks for colonoscopy appointments.

Sixty per cent of patients in the region had to wait more than the eight weeks for a colonoscopy appointment.

The health board is also one of the health boards with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than eight weeks for flexible sigmoidoscopy appointments, with 59 per cent waiting more than the target period.

More than 900 people die from bowel cancer every year in Wales, and it has become the country’s second biggest cancer killer, and the fourth most common cancer.

Asha Kaur, head of policy and campaigns at Bowel Cancer UK, said: “These figures are very disappointing.

“It is unacceptable that patients are being made to wait more than eight weeks for endoscopy tests. How soon someone is seen determines how early a diagnosis can be made. If discovered at the earliest stage, nine out of ten people will survive bowel cancer but this drops significantly as the disease develops and spreads. This is why early diagnosis is so vital.”