LENGTHY delays for crucial home adaptations are putting older people’s health at risk, a report warned today.

The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales Rhian Bowen-Davies warned that prolonged waits have led to older people suffering avoidable serious injuries.

Her report found an average overall waiting time for adaptations of 370 days in Wales, indicating that waiting times have almost doubled since 2019.

Responses from local authorities also showed that older people in around half of areas are waiting longer than the average — many months longer in some cases — with the average waiting time in one area sitting at a massive 692 days, almost a year longer than the average for the country.

She also found that black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals are significantly underrepresented based on the data received — comprising just 1.3 per cent of recipients despite representing 6 per cent of the population in Wales.