Hospitals: Waiting Lists
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients have been removed from the waiting lists for treatment for any other reason than the treatment had been completed, by month since July 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The information requested is shown in the following table:
Number of cases per month, from July 2024 to September 2025, where patients were removed from the Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting list for reasons other than treatment:
Year | Month | Number of cases |
2024 | July | 667,893 |
2024 | August | 599,191 |
2024 | September | 652,924 |
2024 | October | 716,524 |
2024 | November | 667,645 |
2024 | December | 574,449 |
2025 | January | 688,325 |
2025 | February | 637,315 |
2025 | March | 666,908 |
2025 | April | 627,692 |
2025 | May | 635,713 |
2025 | June | 683,863 |
2025 | July | 704,625 |
2025 | August | 593,455 |
2025 | September | 693,033 |
The information for the table above was extracted from the Waiting List Minimum Data Set (WLMDS) on 18 November 2025.
A breakdown of reasons for coming off the waiting list is not available in the aggregate monthly official statistics. However, the information is collected in the weekly management information from the Waiting List Minimum Data Set (WLMDS). The WLMDS is subject to less validation than the monthly official statistics and totals do not match between the two sources.
Reasons for patients being removed from the waiting list can include them starting a period of active monitoring, a clinical decision not to treat, a patient declining treatment or a patient dying before treatment starts.
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