Research · Key findings

NHS RTT key findings (June 2026)

8 live findings from NHS England incomplete-pathway returns: national scale, 52-week backlog, specialty board, ICB spread, trust coverage.

Key findings at a glance

In the June 2026 incomplete-pathway return, PlainNHS counts 7.18 million people waiting across 537 English providers, with 65.8% within 18 weeks of referral (NHS operational standard: 92%).

7.18m
Incomplete pathways (all provider rows on file)
65.8%
Within 18 weeks of referral
107k
Pathways already past 52 weeks
56.2–73.7%
ICB within-18 spread (≥3 large providers)

Warehouse vintage 3 September 2026. Registry voice only - not clinical advice. Source: NHS England RTT incomplete-pathway returns.

According to NHS England's May 2026 Referral to Treatment incomplete-pathway return, more than 7,180,000 people were waiting for consultant-led elective care across English providers; PlainNHS recomputes those aggregates in its warehouse and publishes the specialty board below. See our methodology for the source chain.

Figures as of warehouse vintage 3 September 2026. Registry voice only - not clinical advice.

Pathway families vs operational standards

PlainNHS tracks 10 named pathways. Diagnostics sit under NHS England's 6-week DM01 target; elective procedures sit under the 18-week consultant-led RTT incomplete-pathway standard (92%). The board groups the tracked set by return family and median band - registry counts only.

6-week diagnostic standard

Diagnostic DM01

Pathways
3
Median band
3–4w

Per-test medians from NHS England monthly diagnostics (DM01), not the 18-week RTT rule.

Longest in band: Colonoscopy · ~4,370,000 completed pathways / year across the band

18-week RTT standard (92%)

Elective RTT mid-queue

Pathways
1
Median band
10w

Consultant-led specialty medians under 14 weeks among the pathways PlainNHS tracks.

Longest in band: Cataract Surgery · ~425,000 completed pathways / year across the band

18-week RTT standard (92%)

Elective RTT long-queue

Pathways
6
Median band
14–15w

Orthopaedics, ENT and general-surgery pathways at or above 14-week national medians.

Longest in band: Tonsillectomy · ~408,000 completed pathways / year across the band

Open a wait page

Jump from these national findings into a procedure median or a profiled trust page, the same decision surface the specialty board summarises.

Key findings

1

Across 537 English providers in the June 2026 incomplete-pathway return, PlainNHS counts 7,178,718 people waiting for consultant-led elective care (7.18 million), of whom 65.8% were within 18 weeks of referral (NHS operational standard: 92%).

2

In the same return, 106,621 incomplete pathways (107k) had already waited more than 52 weeks - about 1.5% of the national incomplete list.

3

Among Integrated Care Boards with at least three providers of 1,000+ incomplete pathways each, waiting-list-weighted within-18 share stretches from ESSEX at 56.2% to GLOUCESTERSHIRE at 73.7% (17.5 percentage points). ICB here is the commissioning field in NHS England's provider return, not the seven geographic NHS England regions.

4

Trauma and Orthopaedic Service carries the largest incomplete specialty list in this return: 837,484 pathways, with a provider-average median wait of 13.2 weeks.

5

The three largest specialty queues (Trauma and Orthopaedic, Ophthalmology, Other - Medical Services) together hold 29.1% of all incomplete pathways already past 52 weeks in this return - a concentration the national waiting-times guide does not break out by treatment function.

6

Among 10 common elective procedures on PlainNHS, Tonsillectomy shows the longest published median wait at 15 weeks (procedure-level medians joined from NHS England specialty returns).

7

PlainNHS publishes indexable hospital profiles for 11 trusts that carry NHS England RTT specialty or summary coverage (3,586 provider×specialty rows in the warehouse). Trusts without that coverage stay out of the hospital sitemap.

8

CQC overall ratings on file for PlainNHS trusts break down as 6 rated Requires improvement, 4 rated Good; 2 have no overall rating stored yet. CQC ratings and RTT waits are separate instruments - this page does not claim one predicts the other.

Specialty incomplete-pathway board

NHS England publishes provider and specialty tables separately from the public waiting-times guide. The board below joins incomplete-pathway mass, provider-average median weeks, within-18 share, and 52-week backlog for the ten largest treatment functions in this return.

Specialty Waiting Median wks Within 18% >52 wks
Trauma and Orthopaedic 837,484 13.2 60.6% 21,456
Ophthalmology 622,977 9.1 73.8% 4,621
Other - Medical Services 618,643 11.3 71% 4,993
Ear Nose and Throat 595,473 13.8 59% 12,570
Gynaecology 577,108 13.8 61% 11,305
Other - Surgical Services 471,976 11.9 66.4% 7,048
Dermatology 399,463 11 69% 4,428
General Surgery 382,851 12.3 63% 7,491
Urology 373,998 12.2 65% 5,082
Cardiology 373,459 12.6 68.2% 2,915

Waiting = sum of incomplete pathways; median = average of provider medians (not a patient-level median). Within-18 target is 92%. Source: NHS England RTT specialty return, June 2026.

How these findings are computed

Every number above is queried live from the PlainNHS SQLite warehouse at request time - the same NHS England incomplete-pathway and specialty tables that power hospital and procedure pages. Nothing is typed in by an editor. When the next monthly RTT return lands in ETL, these sentences update with it.

Deeper cuts live under Research: ICB-level within-18 rankings, procedure wait variation, and the open CQC-vs-RTT note. Methodology and source caveats are on the methodology page.

Source: NHS England RTT waiting times Incomplete pathways + treatment-function specialty returns · June 2026 ICB labels are the commissioning field in the provider return, not geographic NHS England regions. Registry voice only.

Source: Care Quality Commission Overall ratings matched to trusts on PlainNHS · 2026

RTT by ICB → Procedure wait spread → Hospital profiles → Procedures → All research →

PlainNHS is rendered directly from NHS England and Care Quality Commission public releases, no number is typed in by an editor. Key findings are SQL aggregates over NHS England RTT incomplete-pathway and specialty tables at request time - no editor-typed figures. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error on this page. Data current as of June 2026. Figures here are for context and comparison; clinical pathway decisions belong with your GP, NHS 111, or the treating Trust.