Hospital waiting times in England have improved, Streeting says | NHS
Hospitals in England have achieved a key target to improve the time it takes for patients to receive treatment, leading Wes Streeting to declare Labour’s “NHS plan is working” before leaving as health secretary.
Streeting had told the NHS to ensure hospitals treated at least 65 per cent of patients in the 18 weeks to the end of March. New NHS England figures published on Thursday showed hospitals did this, treating 65.3% of people on the NHS waiting list in March.
The referral to treatment (RTT) target is a particularly important waiting time standard for the NHS to meet, as it is one that Labor has repeatedly promised to get back to where 92% of patients need to be seen within 18 weeks by 2029.
The success of the NHS will help Streeting polish his record during his 22 months as health secretary. He stated that “the NHS is on the road to recovery” under his leadership, after years of underinvestment and neglect during the 14 years the Conservatives were in power.
Streeting said the success of the NHS “shows that our plan for the NHS is working”. This is the largest reduction in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years.
“This means we are on track to deliver the fastest reduction in waiting times in the history of the NHS.
“This is thanks to the government’s investment, modernization and the extraordinary efforts of all staff.”
March marked the first time since November 2021 that more than 65% of patients were seen within 18 weeks. “This is a huge moment for the NHS,” said Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King’s Fund, said it was a “significant achievement”. He added: “For patients and their loved ones, this means less long waits for treatment and some relief from the anxiety caused by long delays.”
The figures also show the waiting list has fallen by more than half a million since Labor took office. In July 2024, people were awaiting 7.62 million tests and treatments, including surgery. That figure fell by 517,000 to 7.11 million. The total figure has fallen for five consecutive months.
But the figures showed the NHS had also missed targets to improve waiting times for other types of care, including A&E care, cancer treatment and ambulance response times, by the end of 2025-26. “There’s a lot to do, a lot to do,” Streeting said.
Experts said hospitals’ success in delivering the required improvement in RTT performance was the result of NHS England giving them £120 million of extra funding to undertake a “sprint” to meet the target from January. Hospitals used this money to see more patients and eliminate unnecessary or duplicate appointments by “clearing” the waiting list; One tactic claimed by the Conservatives was to “play the numbers”.
NHS trusts have been offered financial incentives to undertake “validation sprint” studies. For example, Shrewsbury and Telford Trust took 14,148 patients off the waiting list after being offered £33 per transplant and Won more than £460,000 in the process.
“It is remarkable that 70% of the progress towards this has been achieved. [65%] “The target from April 2025 has been met in the last two months leading up to the deadline,” said Bea Taylor, of the Nuffield Trust health think tank.
The NHS’s RTT performance has been below 60% for most of recent years; This makes the 65.3% recorded in March even more striking. This was a big jump both from 62.5% in the previous month and especially from 59.8% in March 2025 of the previous year.
But Taylor and Woolnough warned that the NHS was unlikely to maintain the pace of progress seen recently in delivering on Streeting and Starmer’s repeated promises that 92% of patients would be seen again within 18 weeks by 2029.
Demand for NHS care remains intense. “Huge numbers of patients are flooding onto waiting lists every month, making it difficult for the NHS to work quickly enough to keep up,” Taylor said.
