Original research

Research portfolio

PlainNHS publishes three reproducible papers on NHS England RTT data: across 266 profiled providers, 65.5% of 7.1 million incomplete pathways sit within 18 weeks (target 92%), with ICB-level means and specialty-level spreads computed from the same monthly return.

266
English providers with 1,000+ incomplete pathways in the RTT return
65.5%
Incomplete pathways within 18 weeks (weighted national mean)
19
Specialties with inter-provider median wait spreads
36 wks
Largest specialty-level spread in the portfolio

Descriptive statistics only, not clinical advice. Each paper documents the SQL used and cites NHS England / CQC sources inline. Vintage September 2026.

Start with the key findings page, then open a paper below. Each paper is reproducible: the SQL that generated every figure is documented in the methodology section, and the raw NHS England / CQC sources are cited inline.

How NHS RTT 18-week performance varies by Integrated Care Board
A descriptive ranking of waiting-list-weighted RTT 18-week share across English ICBs (the commissioning field in NHS England's provider return), with the full table and dataset.
How much does NHS waiting time vary by Trust for the same procedure?
Computing the inter-Trust spread in median wait for cataract, hip replacement, MRI, and other common procedures.
Does a higher CQC rating correlate with shorter NHS waits?
Why PlainNHS is not publishing a CQC-versus-RTT correlation yet: inspection ratings and RTT returns use different provider identities.
Exploratory note (not indexed while the data linkage is incomplete)

Download the trust-level RTT extract used in these papers: hospitals.csv · open data