Waiting times by location
NHS waiting times near Liverpool
9 NHS trusts within 15 miles of Liverpool city centre reported referral-to-treatment figures for August 2026.
- NHS trusts with data
- 9
- People waiting (combined)
- 275,810
- Sum of published trust totals
- Best-performing trust
- 97.2%
- share under 18 weeks
- Lowest
- 61.3%
- share under 18 weeks
Trusts compared
Sorted by straight-line distance from a reference point in central Liverpool (not an administrative boundary; distances are between registered addresses, not travel time). All-services figures hide large differences between individual services, so open a trust to see service-level figures.
| Trust | Distance | Waiting | Under 18 weeks | Over 52 weeks | Tests over 6 wks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | 1.1 mi | 66,322 | 63% | 827 | 14.1% |
| Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust | 1.5 mi | 11,052 | 61% | 129 | 3.9% |
| Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 3.9 mi | 5,455 | 80% | 18 | 6.4% |
| Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust | 4 mi | 17,520 | 66% | 167 | 4.2% |
| The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust | 4.7 mi | 14,722 | 66% | 226 | 0.0% |
| Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 5.1 mi | 43,368 | 65% | 276 | 4.9% |
| The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust | 5.4 mi | 889 | 97% | 0 | 1.0% |
| Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust | 8.6 mi | 84,572 | 65% | 1,809 | 19.4% |
| Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 14.3 mi | 31,910 | 68% | 205 | 16.0% |
A further 11 NHS-funded independent-sector and other providers in this area are not listed because their case mix makes direct comparison misleading.
Services where local trusts differ most
Gap in the share waiting under 18 weeks between the highest and lowest trust here, for services with at least 200 people waiting.
General surgery · 4 trusts · England 63.2%
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 85.3% — Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 48.3% (gap 37 pp)
Respiratory medicine · 5 trusts · England 74.1%
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 94.3% — Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 59.5% (gap 34.8 pp)
Rheumatology · 4 trusts · England 70.4%
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 83.9% — Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 50.7% (gap 33.2 pp)
Gastroenterology · 4 trusts · England 69.7%
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 90.6% — Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 63.5% (gap 27.1 pp)
Plastic surgery · 2 trusts · England 59.4%
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 75.1% — Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust: 50.6% (gap 24.5 pp)
Urology · 4 trusts · England 64.8%
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 75.0% — Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 51.1% (gap 24 pp)
Elderly medicine · 3 trusts · England 84.3%
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 88.5% — Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 66.0% (gap 22.4 pp)
Dermatology · 4 trusts · England 69.0%
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: 76.0% — Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust: 55.3% (gap 20.7 pp)
How 18-week performance changed over 12 months
Of the 48 hospital-and-specialty pages for NHS trusts within 15 miles of Liverpool with enough comparable published history (4 organisations), these are the 12-month changes in the share of each waiting list waiting under 18 weeks, August 2025 to August 2026:
- 29 of 4818-week performance improved by 3 or more percentage points
- 11 of 4818-week performance broadly stable (change under 3 percentage points)
- 8 of 4818-week performance deteriorated by 3 or more percentage points
These are counts of provider-and-specialty pages, not people. A large and a small waiting list each count once, so the counts describe how many published lists moved in each direction, not how waits changed for patients in general. They do not predict any individual wait and say nothing about quality of care. Figures are for whole trusts or providers, not individual hospital sites. Lists are alphabetical, not ranked.
18-week performance improved by 3 or more percentage points (29 pages, first 5 A–Z)
- Cardiology, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 46.4% → 80%
- Dermatology, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 42.8% → 76%
- Ear, nose and throat (ENT), Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 32.4% → 65.3%
- Gastroenterology, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 60.5% → 90.6%
- General surgery, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 51.2% → 66.1%
24 more in this group. Every hospital page is listed in the hospital trust directory.
18-week performance broadly stable (change under 3 percentage points) (11 pages, first 5 A–Z)
- Oral surgery, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust · 45.9% → 47.3%
- Gastroenterology, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 79.8% → 79.4%
- General surgery, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 61.8% → 60.3%
- Ophthalmology, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 66.6% → 69%
- Orthopaedics, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 69.3% → 67.4%
6 more in this group. Every hospital page is listed in the hospital trust directory.
18-week performance deteriorated by 3 or more percentage points (8 pages, first 5 A–Z)
- Cardiology, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust · 83.2% → 73.2%
- Elderly medicine, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust · 74.4% → 66%
- Urology, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust · 55.9% → 51.1%
- Cardiology, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 76.7% → 72.1%
- Dermatology, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust · 60.9% → 55.3%
3 more in this group. Every hospital page is listed in the hospital trust directory.
NHS waiting trends across England explains the method and covers every specialty and area.
Related areas
Other area pages covering the same NHS trusts.
- NHS trusts in the North West
Liverpool trusts report into this NHS region
Distance is not travel time
Distances are straight-line between registered addresses and city centres. Trusts often run several hospital sites, so the site you would attend may be closer or further.
What these figures cannot tell you
- Where you are in a queue, or when you will be seen or treated.
- How urgent your own referral is. These are aggregate waiting-list figures and do not show the clinical priority of an individual patient.
- Anything about a specific consultant, clinic or site within a trust.
- What will happen next month: these are end-of-month snapshots of a past period.
Related guides on this site
- NHS patient choice explained
Background on the legal basis of NHS patient choice.
- How to switch hospitals for faster NHS treatment
Reference article on how hospital switching works within the NHS.
- Work out how long you've waited
Explains how the 18-week measure is counted and what a published percentage represents.
- Your rights while you wait
Reference article on what the 18-week standard is and is not.