Waiting trends · latest data August 2026
NHS waiting trends in England
This page describes how published NHS waiting figures moved over the last 12 months. It uses one measure: the share of people on each waiting list who had been waiting under 18 weeks at the end of the month. It cannot tell you how long you will wait, or where your own referral stands.
England as a whole
At the end of August 2026, 65.2% of people on the NHS consultant-led waiting list in England had been waiting under 18 weeks, compared with 60.9% at the end of August 2025. That is 18-week performance improved (+4.2 percentage points).
Calculated from the official NHS England RTT full CSV data files (incomplete pathways, all specialties): people waiting under 18 weeks divided by all people waiting, summed over every submitted row (7,345,544 people in August 2025; 7,189,213 in August 2026). NHS England's headline England figure can differ slightly because it adds estimates for organisations that did not submit data.
Hospital-and-specialty pages by 12-month change
1285 hospital-and-specialty pages, covering 111 NHS organisations, have enough comparable published history to describe a 12-month change. A change of 3 percentage points or more either way counts as 18-week performance improved or deteriorated; anything smaller is 18-week performance broadly stable.
- 702 of 128518-week performance improved by 3 or more percentage points
- 333 of 128518-week performance broadly stable (change under 3 percentage points)
- 250 of 128518-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.
By specialty
England figures use summed counts. Page counts appear only where at least 20 pages have comparable history. Alphabetical.
| Specialty | England, under 18 weeks | Pages: improved / broadly stable / deteriorated |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiology | 61.1% → 67.9% (improved) | 66 / 18 / 19 of 103 |
| Dermatology | 64.2% → 69% (improved) | 47 / 19 / 17 of 83 |
| Ear, nose and throat (ENT) | 50.2% → 56.8% (improved) | 64 / 22 / 13 of 99 |
| Elderly medicine | 83.6% → 84.3% (broadly stable) | Too few pages to summarise |
| Gastroenterology | 64% → 69.7% (improved) | 65 / 23 / 14 of 102 |
| General medicine | 67.5% → 72.3% (improved) | Too few pages to summarise |
| General surgery | 61.1% → 63.2% (broadly stable) | 42 / 32 / 21 of 95 |
| Gynaecology | 56.3% → 59.6% (improved) | 52 / 27 / 23 of 102 |
| Neurology | 55.9% → 62.3% (improved) | 36 / 13 / 18 of 67 |
| Neurosurgery | 59.5% → 62% (broadly stable) | Too few pages to summarise |
| Ophthalmology | 69.8% → 72.2% (broadly stable) | 44 / 25 / 22 of 91 |
| Oral surgery | 50.5% → 53.8% (improved) | 39 / 26 / 20 of 85 |
| Orthopaedics | 58.6% → 60.9% (broadly stable) | 52 / 44 / 14 of 110 |
| Plastic surgery | 57.9% → 59.4% (broadly stable) | 20 / 13 / 5 of 38 |
| Respiratory medicine | 65.6% → 74.1% (improved) | 67 / 13 / 14 of 94 |
| Rheumatology | 67.1% → 70.4% (improved) | 40 / 15 / 21 of 76 |
| Urology | 59.9% → 64.8% (improved) | 50 / 29 / 19 of 98 |
By area
NHS trusts in each NHS region, or within the stated distance of a city. Shown only where at least 2 trusts and 10 pages have comparable history. An area does not have one waiting time: each trust and specialty differs, so open the area page for its hospital links.
NHS regions
- North East · 7 trusts · 35 improved, 17 broadly stable, 26 deteriorated of 78 pages
- North West · 16 trusts · 124 improved, 43 broadly stable, 22 deteriorated of 189 pages
- Yorkshire and the Humber · 12 trusts · 71 improved, 36 broadly stable, 41 deteriorated of 148 pages
- East Midlands · 6 trusts · 44 improved, 20 broadly stable, 14 deteriorated of 78 pages
- West Midlands · 14 trusts · 72 improved, 43 broadly stable, 39 deteriorated of 154 pages
- East of England · 11 trusts · 88 improved, 44 broadly stable, 21 deteriorated of 153 pages
- London region · 18 trusts · 134 improved, 56 broadly stable, 34 deteriorated of 224 pages
- South East · 20 trusts · 95 improved, 54 broadly stable, 41 deteriorated of 190 pages
- South West · 7 trusts · 39 improved, 20 broadly stable, 12 deteriorated of 71 pages
Cities
- London · 18 trusts · 134 improved, 56 broadly stable, 34 deteriorated of 224 pages
- Birmingham · 5 trusts · 29 improved, 22 broadly stable, 17 deteriorated of 68 pages
- Manchester · 5 trusts · 42 improved, 12 broadly stable, 8 deteriorated of 62 pages
- Leeds · 5 trusts · 35 improved, 17 broadly stable, 13 deteriorated of 65 pages
- Liverpool · 4 trusts · 29 improved, 11 broadly stable, 8 deteriorated of 48 pages
- Sheffield · 3 trusts · 17 improved, 9 broadly stable, 7 deteriorated of 33 pages
- Bristol · 2 trusts · 16 improved, 4 broadly stable, 4 deteriorated of 24 pages
- Newcastle upon Tyne · 4 trusts · 19 improved, 13 broadly stable, 13 deteriorated of 45 pages
- Coventry · 3 trusts · 19 improved, 8 broadly stable, 10 deteriorated of 37 pages
- Southampton · 3 trusts · 9 improved, 8 broadly stable, 5 deteriorated of 22 pages
- Reading · 3 trusts · 22 improved, 9 broadly stable, 8 deteriorated of 39 pages
- Stoke-on-Trent · 2 trusts · 10 improved, 6 broadly stable, 6 deteriorated of 22 pages
- Middlesbrough · 3 trusts · 16 improved, 4 broadly stable, 13 deteriorated of 33 pages
- Preston · 4 trusts · 34 improved, 12 broadly stable, 4 deteriorated of 50 pages
Method and limits
- Source: NHS England Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting times statistics, incomplete pathways, latest month August 2026.
- A page is counted only if it is a published hospital-and-specialty page, the provider is reliably identified, its latest month is the current national month, the list has at least 50 people, and there are at least 13 usable months. Missing months are never filled in.
- The 12-month change compares the same organisation and specialty in the same month a year apart.
- Figures cover whole trusts or providers, not individual hospital sites. Trauma and orthopaedics figures are not specific to any one operation, such as hip replacement.
- This is not a ranking and says nothing about quality of care. It does not predict any individual wait.
See also: waiting times by specialty, by area, by hospital trust, and our data methodology.