NHS waiting list drops to 7.29m

This marks a decrease of 18,000 from 7.31m patients on the list in November 2025 and 172,000 since December 2024 (7.46m). The figures show that while the number of patients on the list has decreased since November 2025, the average wait time increased to 13.4 weeks from 12.9 weeks in November. Around 61.5% of patients were seen within the Government's targeted 18-week referral to treatment time, which is up 2.6 percentage points from the same month in the previous year. However, this marks a marginal decrease from 61.8% of patients seen in this timeframe in November. At the same...