The government has ordered every NHS hospital in England to reduce waiting times for elective care and made the 18-week standard a central pledge. By March 2026 the goal is for at least 65% of patients to wait no more than 18 weeks, with each trust required to hit 60% or improve its November 2024 figure by five percentage points. This is a milestone on the way to a longer-term target of 92% by July 2029. Use the BBC interactive tool to check how your local trust is performing; other UK nations operate different targets.
NHS waiting-times tracker — Are hospital waits near you improving?
The government has ordered every NHS hospital in England to reduce waiting times for elective care and made the 18-week standard a central pledge. By March 2026 the goal is for at least 65% of patients to wait no more than 18 weeks, with each trust required to hit 60% or improve its November 2024 figure by five percentage points. This is a milestone on the way to a longer-term target of 92% by July 2029. Use the BBC interactive tool to check how your local trust is performing; other UK nations operate different targets.
02:43 PM, 11/13/2025Health
NHS waiting-times tracker — Are hospital waits near you improving?
Every NHS hospital in England has been instructed to cut waiting times for planned (elective) treatment after the UK government made meeting the 18-week standard a central pledge of this Parliament. The government has set an interim target for March 2026 as part of a longer plan to reduce backlog and improve access to care.
What are the targets?
By March 2026 ministers want at least 65% of patients in England to have waited no more than 18 weeks for elective treatment. To reach that milestone, each NHS trust must either:
- achieve a 60% rate of patients waiting 18 weeks or less, or
- show an improvement of 5 percentage points compared with its November 2024 figures — whichever requirement is greater.
This is presented as a stepping stone toward the government’s longer-term ambition of 92% of patients treated within 18 weeks by July 2029.
How to check progress locally
Use your postcode to check whether waiting lists near you are improving via the BBC interactive tool. BBC Verify’s analysis focused on England trusts that had at least 5,000 people waiting for elective treatment in November 2024.
Targets in the rest of the UK
The UK government’s March interim targets apply only to England. The other nations have different standards:
- Scotland: target of 90% of patients treated within 18 weeks of referral.
- Wales: target of 95% of patients waiting less than 26 weeks.
- Northern Ireland: standard that 55% of patients should wait no longer than 13 weeks for day-case or inpatient treatment.
Why this matters
Long waiting lists can delay diagnosis and treatment, affect quality of life and increase pressure on urgent care. The interim targets aim to drive faster improvement across trusts while a longer-term target seeks to restore timely elective care.
Explore the interactive map to see how your local trust is performing and whether waits are getting shorter or longer.
Interactive tool produced by Alli Shultes, Rebecca French, Daniel Wainwright, Nick Triggle, Ollie Lux Rigby, Chris Kay, Adam Allen, Avi Holden and Rebecca Wedge-Roberts.
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