6-week diagnostic standard
Diagnostic DM01
- Pathways
- 3
- Median band
- 2–3–3–4w
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
Research · Key findings
How to read these waiting bands
These bands describe elapsed waits among pathways still waiting at the stated period end, not time until an appointment or completed treatment. A range such as 3–<4 includes 3 but excludes 4 weeks; >3–4 excludes 3 and includes 4. 13+ has no upper bound; >104 means more than 104 weeks. Chart bars mark the finite upper bound or, for open bands, the lower bound; tied bands cannot rank individual waits.
NHS RTT key findings (June 2026)
9 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 21 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 21 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.
18-week RTT standard (92%)
Elective RTT mid-queue
- Pathways
- 1
- Median band
- 9–10w
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
- 13–14–14–15w
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 national median band of >13–14 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 specialties with at least 50,000 incomplete pathways, national specialty median bands stretch from Oral Surgery at >16–17 weeks to Gynaecology at >13–14 weeks - the same 18-week standard, very different specialty clocks.
7
Among 10 common elective procedures on PlainNHS, Tonsillectomy shows the longest published median wait at >14–15 weeks (diagnostic-test or specialty bands, not forecasts for individual operations).
8
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.
9
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, national patient median bands, 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 | >13–14 | 60.6% | 21,456 |
| Ophthalmology | 622,977 | >9–10 | 73.8% | 4,621 |
| Other - Medical Services | 618,643 | >10–11 | 71% | 4,993 |
| Ear Nose and Throat | 595,473 | >14–15 | 59% | 12,570 |
| Gynaecology | 577,108 | >13–14 | 61% | 11,305 |
| Other - Surgical Services | 471,976 | >11–12 | 66.4% | 7,048 |
| Dermatology | 399,463 | >10–11 | 69% | 4,428 |
| General Surgery | 382,851 | >13–14 | 63% | 7,491 |
| Urology | 373,998 | >12–13 | 65% | 5,082 |
| Cardiology | 373,459 | >11–12 | 68.2% | 2,915 |
Waiting = sum of incomplete pathways; median = national patient percentile band from the summed source histogram. 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
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.