NHSE’s 2022 recovery plan ambition was to eliminate waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025. Within this, NHSE aimed that no one would wait longer than two years by July 2022, that there would be no waits of over 18 months by April 2023, and no waits of over 65 weeks by March 2024. The NAO reported that, while none of these targets on long waits were achieved, waits of two years had reduced by 87% by July 2022, waits of over 18 months had reduced by 83% by April 2023 and waits of no more than 65 weeks had reduced by 69% by March 2024. NHSE also missed statutory targets. Since 2013, NHS regulations have included a statutory requirement for patients on 92% of elective care pathways to wait no more than 18 weeks from referral.12 In March 2025, 60% of patients had waited for up to 18 weeks.13 For diagnostics, the post-COVID 19 recovery target was that, by March 2025, 95% of patients waiting for a test should receive it within six weeks of referral. As of January 2025, 22% of patients waited more than six weeks for their test.14