Waiting times by specialty

Patients still waiting for consultant-led treatment at the end of August 2026, by specialty, across England. Choose a specialty to see every hospital ranked by its median wait.

England waiting times by specialty, August 2026
Specialty	Waiting	Median wait	92% within	Within 18 weeks	Providers
General surgery	384,914	12.8 wks	41.2 wks	63%	238
Urology	367,027	12.2 wks	38.6 wks	65%	180
Orthopaedics	851,183	13.9 wks	42.1 wks	61%	299
Ear, nose and throat	590,233	15.4 wks	41.3 wks	57%	152
Ophthalmology (eyes)	625,063	10.4 wks	32.5 wks	72%	301
Oral surgery	316,357	16.4 wks	43.1 wks	54%	112
Neurosurgery	54,748	13.4 wks	39.4 wks	62%	37
Plastic surgery	109,605	14.0 wks	44.2 wks	59%	82
Cardiothoracic surgery	8,798	9.6 wks	33.2 wks	74%	21
General medicine	31,589	10.2 wks	32.3 wks	72%	62
Gastroenterology	358,127	11.0 wks	36.4 wks	70%	166
Cardiology (heart)	362,143	11.9 wks	35.1 wks	68%	125
Dermatology (skin)	423,217	10.5 wks	37.5 wks	69%	111
Respiratory medicine	182,914	10.4 wks	31.1 wks	74%	120
Neurology	208,030	13.2 wks	38.6 wks	62%	87
Rheumatology	118,397	10.9 wks	35.0 wks	70%	120
Elderly medicine	27,431	7.6 wks	25.3 wks	84%	96
Gynaecology	586,582	14.2 wks	41.7 wks	60%	176
Other medical specialties	622,434	10.7 wks	35.3 wks	70%	145
Other mental health	3,361	8.4 wks	25.7 wks	82%	9
Other paediatric specialties	322,905	12.3 wks	36.4 wks	66%	113
Other surgical specialties	474,806	11.4 wks	39.1 wks	67%	129
Other services	159,349	8.7 wks	32.6 wks	76%	119
All specialties	7,189,213	12.2 wks	38.9 wks	65%	496

The five "Other" groups collect smaller specialties, for example vascular surgery under other surgical specialties and endocrinology under other medical specialties. Providers are counted when they had at least 50 patients waiting.