The NHS waiting list in England must halve to reach waiting time targets

Wood, Richard M and Fox, Sebastian S and Morgan, Lucy E and Walton, Neil S (2025) The NHS waiting list in England must halve to reach waiting time targets. Future Healthcare Journal: 100478. ISSN 2514-6645 (In Press)

Abstract

It is a constitutional requirement in England’s NHS that 92% of patients awaiting consultant-led elective treatment must be waiting no longer than 18 weeks. This was last met in November 2015. Since then, waiting times have lengthened, with only 58.9% of the 7.5 million waiting at year-end 2024 waiting under 18 weeks. The Labour Government has pledged to restore the 92% standard by 2029 – the end of the current parliament. While it is known that the waiting list must reduce, the size it must reduce to has not before been formally investigated. Leveraging a recently published mathematical framework for modelling NHS waiting lists, we find the waiting list must be halved to 3.4 million to reach the 92% standard. Furthermore, we reveal the unequal distribution of this challenge, with different regions and specialties requiring disproportionately more or less resources than others to reach their required waiting list targets.