Setting our sights high
Thousands of people from across North East London are in line to get faster access to high quality tests and treatment at our hospitals over the next few years.
They will be the direct beneficiaries of our plans to fully meet the key NHS constitutional standards in stages by the end of the decade.
Our new group plan for 2026/27 and beyond sets ambitious but achievable milestones to treat more patients more promptly, based on our success in 2025/26.
For example, in our A&Es we aim to see eight out of ten urgent cases within the national four-hour standard. And in elective care we aim to treat almost nine out of ten patients within 18 weeks of referral by a GP.
These are just two elements of a comprehensive plan that shows how our group of hospitals will improve care for patients, support staff, work with local partners and communities and use money wisely.
By 2029 the overall impact will be to cut by half the number of people in north east London waiting for routine treatment, currently about 121,000 at Barts Health alone.
This year we also aim to do hundreds more planned procedures, including more operations as day cases, and reduce the number of missed appointments by 19,000.
Shane DeGaris, group chief executive, said: “As one of the biggest groups of hospitals in the country, our teams agreed robust and realistic targets so we can play our part in meeting the national commitments in the 10-year NHS plan.
“It won’t be easy, but it will be easier because of the transformation programmes we have already put in place, particularly in our outpatients departments where we see the most people, both before and after planned procedures.”
The plans build on what we achieved in the past year - eliminating long waits for routine operations, speeding up the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, reducing our reliance on temporary staffing, looking after our people, and balancing the books.
The plan is fully aligned with our long-term clinical strategy as well as NHS goals and sets out both our five-year priorities and what we will do this coming year.
There’s a lot of detail covering every aspect of our work but you can read a summary in Towards Excellence for All and watch a video here explaining the main changes.