Providing more for our patients
Our hospitals are busier than they have ever been, treating more patients and providing high quality care more promptly.
On average over 7,500 patients are coming through our doors to be assessed or treated daily, over 250 more every day than this time last year.
That includes a record 612,000 people visiting our three emergency departments over the last 12 months, the largest volume of A&E attendances in the country.
Despite the pressure this puts on our teams, three-quarters of attendees are being seen, treated and discharged within the national four-hour standard - helped by a significant expansion of same day emergency care.
A raft of annual indicators show how our group of hospitals is improving services for patients while living within our means. For almost a year we have exceeded the new national standards for speedy diagnosis of suspected cancer, and we ended 2025/26 by exceeding the target for starting treatment within two months.
We now go into 2026/27 with no-one waiting more than 65 weeks for planned care, having met our target to increase the proportion of patients seen within 18 weeks and are on track to avoid anyone waiting over 12 months this year.
In fact the overall waiting list has fallen by 5% since January to below 124,000. Funding for an “elective sprint” enabled us to do an extra 2,500 procedures and 7,000 more first outpatient appointments in the first three months of the year.
At the same time our accounts will show we balanced our £2.7bn budget for 2025/26 in line with our financial recovery plan and significantly reduced temporary staffing.
Hardev Virdee, our group chief finance officer, said:
“We delivered what we said we would do. It’s a huge achievement across our hospitals, despite a difficult winter and successive waves of industrial action, and it has put us on the right path to achieve long-term sustainability.”
The performance figures for 2025/26 set the benchmark for our forthcoming group operational plan which will set out our targets for further improvement over the next three years
Further details about safety, clinical quality and patient experience during the past year will be published in the quality account accompanying the annual accounts.
Rebecca Carlton, group chief operating officer, said:
“I am proud of the progress we achieved this year. Our teams continue to provide care at an extraordinary and growing scale, supported by enhanced data quality. Despite rising demand, we continue to improve how quickly people are seen, treated and supported to move through our hospitals.”