Hospitals across England are being urged to speed up treatment for patients waiting for planned care as the government places renewed focus on reducing NHS backlogs. Improving waiting times has become one of the central health priorities for the current parliament, with ministers aiming to bring down the number of people facing long delays for non-emergency procedures.

Under the latest target, at least 65% of patients should be treated within 18 weeks of being referred by the end of March 2026. The 18-week standard is a long-standing benchmark used to measure how quickly patients receive planned operations, specialist consultations and other routine hospital care.

To help reach that goal, each NHS trust has been set its own improvement target. Hospitals are expected to either ensure that 60% of patients are treated within 18 weeks or increase their performance by at least five percentage points compared with their figures from November 2024 — whichever represents the greater improvement.

Health officials say this is only an interim step in a wider recovery plan for the NHS. The long-term ambition is to restore waiting times closer to previous standards, with a target that 92% of patients should receive treatment within 18 weeks by July 2029. Achieving this would represent a major reduction in the treatment backlog that has grown significantly in recent years.