The Department has published today the annual report for 2011 on NHS referral to treatment waiting times (RTT). This information relates to Primary Care Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities, and NHS Trusts in England and has approval from the UK Statistics Authority in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
The key points from the latest release are:
- the majority of RTT patients started treatment within 18 weeks of referral in 2011. The percentage of patients who started admitted and non-admitted treatment within 18 weeks at England level has been broadly stable since January 2009
- during the year the non-admitted standard was met nationally in all 12 months of the calendar year. The admitted standard was met nationally in 10 of the 12 months
- percentage of incomplete pathways – patients still waiting to start treatment at the end of the month – within 18 weeks rose from 88.3% at the end of January 2011 to 91.2% at the end of December 2011
- in 2011, the average patient waited around eight and a half weeks to start admitted treatment, 4 weeks to start non-admitted treatment, and the average patient still waiting for treatment at the end of the month had been waiting around 6 weeks
- each month around 300,000 RTT patients start admitted treatment and around 850,000 start non-admitted treatment
- numbers of RTT patients waiting at the end of each month has been around 2.5 million patients since October 2008
- there is a seasonal trend, where there are fewer patients waiting during winter – around 2.4 million – and more patients waiting during summer – around 2.6 million
Further information is available at: NHS Referral to Treatment waiting times statistics, Annual Report 2011
