Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) says that more patients are being treated sooner thanks to staff working exceptionally hard to help local people access their treatment as soon as possible.
In January this year just over 55 per cent of patients waiting for treatment with NUH were seen within 18 weeks, but this figure rose by 8.4 per cent to 63.5 per cent – the highest growth in the region.
Deputy Chief Operating Officer at NUH, Duane McLean, said: “I am delighted that as an organisation we exceeded our plans for Referral to Treatment performance in 2025/26, in achieving this we reduced the overall size of our planned care waiting list, and the length of time patients are waiting for appointments.
Through our participation in the quarter four elective sprint NUH saw over 10,000 more new patients through outpatients then we had planned to. Supporting the delivery of the national objectives for the NHS.”
The Dermatology team at NUH has been working with colleagues in the community to review referrals and where appropriate see and treat patients outside of hospital. Which is expected to lead to a 40 per cent reduction referrals to dermatology at NUH.
NUH Dermatology Specialty general manager, Lisa Briggs, explained other working processes the team has implemented to ease the backlog: “By using technology to optimise our bookings processes and aligning everyone’s booking rules we have gained extra capacity in clinics for new patients to be seen which has resulted in over 150 new outpatient appointments created per month in our first specialty to go live.
“We also have the new AI pathway for cancer 2-week wait service. The ‘Skin Analytics’ pilot of patients’ referral for skin cancer saw a 15-30 per cent reduction in 2-week wait suspected cancer referrals. This goes Live on 8th June.”
The Government set a national target for 65 per cent of patients to be seen within 18 weeks for elective treatment (planned treatment) by March this year. The latest figures, released today, confirm that the NHS has delivered this goal.
Dr Jess Sokolov, Regional Medical Director for NHSE in the Midlands, said: “I want to thank our colleagues in Nottingham for all their hard work in bringing down waiting lists at an incredible pace this year.
“Staff working across the NHS have pulled out all the stops to help people who have often been waiting too long for lifechanging surgery.
“Delays to planned procedures have a massive human cost in terms of the growing loss of independence or risk of accidents as a patient’s health deteriorates. That’s why we want more people to be seen within the 18-week time frame and return to their best health as soon as possible.”
