Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust outperforms national average on waiting times

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) is continuing to demonstrate strong performance against national waiting time targets.

The latest figures show that in April over 70% of our patients were waiting within the NHS’s 18-week referral to treatment target, outperforming the national average of just below 60% as reported in the BBC recently.

Our waiting list has consistently averaged around 41,000 patients this calendar year, which represents a significant improvement from our peak waiting list of 48,751 patients back in May 2023.

Robin Jones, Chief Operating Officer at RCHT, explains: “We’re really pleased to see this progress. We all know it’s a challenging time for the NHS, but the dedication of our staff has enabled us to make this significant headway and outperform the national average.”

We have also reduced long waits, currently ranking as the third best performing trust in the southwest region for patients waiting over 52-weeks for treatment.

Robin added: “It’s great to see this reduction in our longest waiters, which represents real progress in getting patients the care they need. We remain focused on further improvements, particularly as we navigate the typically busier summer months.”

Over the last year we have been working hard to bring down waiting times for patients and those waiting for planned operations and procedures. We have increased the number of procedures performed, carrying out almost 81,000, which is 7% more than pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Diagnostic waiting times have shown impressive improvement, with 91% of patients now receiving tests within 6 weeks, consistently showing some of the best performance across southwest acute providers.

Successful bids to the national Elective Recovery Fund have further helped benefit our patients. Collaborative projects with Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, including the Bodmin and West Cornwall Hospital Community Diagnostic Centres, have seen over 88,772 patients since opening, while St Austell Surgical Hub has treated over 1,200 patients since opening in November 2024.