NHS Waiting Times Tracker Highlights Progress and Ongoing Challenges

Monitoring of hospital waiting times in England has become more accessible following the publication of an interactive tracker by BBC Verify in July 2025, with updates provided in October 2025. The tracker provides insight into how NHS trusts are performing against government waiting-time targets.

The tracker includes data for NHS trusts in England that had at least 5,000 people waiting for elective treatment as of November 2024. It allows the public to review performance at a local level and compare progress across regions.

The government set an interim goal for March 2026, requiring at least 65% of patients to begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. Each trust must either reach 60% or improve its November 2024 figure by five percentage points, whichever is greater. The longer-term ambition is for 92% of patients to be treated within 18 weeks by July 2029.

Performance varies across the UK, with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each maintaining separate targets. Scotland aims for 90% of patients to be treated within 18 weeks, Wales sets a target of 95% within 26 weeks, and Northern Ireland targets 55% within 13 weeks for day-case or inpatient treatment.

What the numbers show

• In 2025, NHS England delivered 18.4 million elective treatments, reducing the waiting list to 7.29 million
• By February 2026, 61.5% of patients waited over 18 weeks for treatment, with 1.9% waiting over 52 weeks
• In August 2025, 61.0% of people were waiting less than 18 weeks, up from 56.6% in December 2023
• In July 2025, A&E four-hour performance reached 63.1%, the highest since the pandemic

Regional differences in elective care performance were observed in March 2025. The North East and Yorkshire region recorded the highest proportion of patients treated within 18 weeks at 64.8%, while the East of England had the lowest at 53.6%. Half of acute trusts had between 55.4% and 63.9% of cases meeting the 18-week standard.

Diagnostic waiting times also shifted during 2025. In February, 82.5% of diagnostic cases were completed within six weeks, but this figure declined to 76.0% by August. For emergency care, the percentage of A&E attendees waiting more than 12 hours remained at 10.3% in the year to September 2025, unchanged from the previous year.

According to NHS England, real-time data on referral-to-treatment times, diagnostics, cancer waiting times, outpatient recovery, and urgent and emergency care are available through its online portal. This resource supports ongoing monitoring and transparency for both patients and healthcare providers.

A report from the Public Accounts Committee in November 2025 found that the elective care waiting list stood at 7.4 million clinical pathways, a reduction of about 220,000 since July 2024. The same report stated that 192,000 people had been waiting at least a year for care, and 22% of patients were waiting more than six weeks for a diagnostic test, missing targets set for March 2025.

Patient experience data from the Office for National Statistics in September 2025 showed that 56.0% of those on a hospital waiting list believed shorter waits would improve their experience, while 46.1% said more frequent updates would help.

* This article is based on publicly available information at the time of writing.