Health Services: Waiting Lists
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the criteria for removing patients from an NHS waiting list.
Answered by Karin Smyth
Patients can be removed from the referral to treatment waiting list for a variety of reasons, including where a patient receives their first definitive treatment, begins a period of active monitoring, declines treatment, or where a decision is made that no treatment is required.
Unreported removals have remained relatively constant proportions of all removals in recent years, and are lower now, at around 14.6% in 2025/26, than before the pandemic, when they were at approximately 17%.
Full information on the reasons why patients are removed from the waiting list is set out in the Consultant-led Referral to Treatment Waiting Times Rules and Guidance, at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-guidance/
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