You pay £215bn a year. Every big target is missed.
You pay £215bn a year for the NHS. It misses every one of its own big targets. Here's each one, the promise, the reality, and whether it's actually getting better.
8 figures, each with its official source.
Pathways, not people (~6.1m unique patients). Genuinely improving: 2.3% smaller than April 2025, but 99,781 pathways had waited over a year, and the median wait was 11.9 weeks.
The NHS Constitution standard is 92%, last met in February 2016. The pledge is to restore it by March 2029, via 65% by March 2026 (broadly reached, up 5.2pp on a year earlier) and 70% during 2026/27.
Standard: 95%, no trust with a major (Type 1) A&E met it; Type 1 departments managed 61.9%. 50,212 patients waited 12+ hours for admission, up 17.1% on May 2025. Interim NHS target: 82% by March 2027.
Standard: 18 minutes; the framework targets 25 min in 2026/27 and 18 min only by March 2029. Slower than May 2025 on NHS England's own note. Category 1 (life-threatening) averaged 7 min 52 sec against a 7-minute standard, unmet since April 2021.
Standard: 85%, unmet since December 2015. The 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard stood at 75.9% (ambition 80%); the 31-day treatment standard at 91.5% (standard 96%).
Not a pure unmet-need measure (some adults go private or need no treatment), but access remains well below pre-pandemic. Children: 57% seen in 12 months. Courses of treatment rose 4% year on year, a steady recovery per NHSBSA.
Total revenue resource limit for the NHS England group, plus a £5.0bn capital limit. Day-to-day funding grows ~3%/yr in real terms to 2028/29 under SR25, the performance gaps above persist despite a rising budget.
Up ~15% in one year (from £13.8bn) and now larger than the annual cost of running the entire NHS estate. The backlog is the investment needed to restore buildings to a defined condition; sensitive to valuation methods.