Patients wishing to attend hospital emergency departments will have to phone ahead to make an appointment.

Under new NHS Wales guidelines, all health boards and trust chief executives in Wales have been briefed.

Health minister Vaughan Gething touched on the idea in a statement on 21 July, in which he said patients “will be assessed remotely by a suitably qualified doctor or a nurse”.

Depending on their circumstances they will then be:

• encouraged to self-care

• signposted to a more appropriate service in their local community

• directly booked in to an appointment in an emergency department if they need further assessment and treatment

He added: “Access to emergency care services for people with life-threatening or serious conditions will not change, nor will there be any change to how 999 calls for these high priority patients are dealt with.”

Welsh Government hopes it will ease crowded waiting rooms and give people appropriate care, as the spectre of a second Covid-19 wave of infections hovers over Wales.

However, patient advocate groups believe the public should have been consulted on what they say is a major service change.

They also believe it could put extra pressure on the Welsh Ambulance Service, as people attempt to bypass the call centres.

Called Phone First it has already been trialled in Cardiff and Vale Health Board.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands plans are already underway to scale the service up across Wales, including at Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board.

Geoff Ryall-Harvey, chief officer of North Wales CHC, said: “I think the public need to be engaged with this.

“It’s a fundamental change to the way people access emergency services and we believe NHS Wales should be engaging people before making fundamental change.”

A Welsh Government spokesman said a national group has been set up to oversee the development of the ‘phone first’ approach.

A spokesman said: “We are working with key stakeholders from across the urgent care system, including patient representative groups.”

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board declined to comment on the plans.