Patients treated more quickly as NHS productivity rises over year
Source: gov.uk (2025-09-21)

NHS productivity increases by 2.7% over the past year, new data shows, meaning patients are being seen and treated more quickly due to investment and reforms.

- NHS productivity increases by 2.7% over the past year, new data shows
- It means patients are being seen and treated more quickly thanks to record investment and reforms
- NHS investment must deliver greater efficiency and real value for patients, under the government’s Plan for Change
Patients across England are being seen and treated more quickly thanks to improvements in NHS productivity over the past year.

New data shows NHS productivity for acute trusts increased by 2.7% over the past year - between April 2024 and March 2025 - exceeding the government’s 2% year-on-year target set in the 10 Year Health Plan.

This has been achieved through more same-day discharges, shorter hospital stays, better use of technology, reduced reliance on agency staff, improved staff retention, and sending in crack teams of top clinicians to underperforming trusts to drive rapid improvements.

As a result, the NHS is delivering more care more efficiently, so patients can get the treatment they need sooner at better value for taxpayers.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said:

I’ve always been clear that NHS staff should be spending their time caring for patients, not on bureaucracy and needless duplication.

We’re boosting productivity through a range of measures - from sending in crack teams to underperforming trusts, clamping down on wasteful agency spend and increasing use of technology. This is having a real-life impact for patients - quicker access to tests and treatment.

We’re turning the NHS round after years of neglect but I know too many people are still waiting too long. That’s why we’re combining record investment of £29 billion with tough reforms, making sure every pound is spent on cutting waiting times and improving care for patients through our Plan for Change.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, said:

Making the NHS more productive is essential to delivering better care for patients, value for money for the taxpayer and stronger economic growth. These are welcome figures that demonstrate our plan is working - but there is more we, and we must, do.

Productivity has been improved through a focus on efficiencies in elective care, outpatient reform and urgent and emergency care as well as on tech and artificial intelligence (AI).

This includes the Further Faster 20 programme, a government initiative to deploy expert advice to NHS trusts in areas where more people are out of work - that helped cut waiting lists by 87,000 across 20 areas between October 2024 and June 2025.

More surgical hubs have also opened across the country, which provide the space to run surgeries back to back, so surgeons can treat more patients each shift.

The government’s support for the NHS workforce has improved retention, reduced sickness absence, and lowered reliance on agency staff. Agency spending was cut by almost £1 billion in the past year, 31% of the previous year’s spend.

The rollout of electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) systems has halved discharge medicine preparation times by using mobile devices rather than traditional paper-based systems to record medicine use. These systems will be in 98% of areas by March next year.

Major investment under this government in IT infrastructure such as the electronic referral service (eRS) and the NHS App is saving clinical time by allowing more care to be delivered more efficiently, remotely and in new care settings, as well as reducing missed appointments. With more patients able to access correspondence digitally through the app, almost 12 million fewer paper letters have been sent by hospitals between July 2024 and April 2025.

AI technology, tested across 9 NHS sites, has freed up clinicians to spend more time with patients. A&E departments saw a 13.4% increase in patients treated per shift and a 51.7% reduction in time spent completing documentation. (Read more about the GOSH-led trial of AI-scribe technology under ‘Background information’ below.) This in turn will end the need for staff to carry out tasks like clinical note taking, letter drafting and manual data entry. When rolled out across the NHS, it could free up the equivalent of over 2,000 full-time GPs’ capacity.

Elizabeth O’Mahony, NHS Chief Financial Officer, said:

NHS teams across the country are laser-focused on delivering more for each taxpayer pound we spend, and these figures demonstrate the significant progress being made despite wider financial challenges.

Reductions in agency spend, shorter hospital stays and better use of the latest medicines and technology are helping staff deliver care more efficiently for patients.

Through the 10 Year Health Plan, the government will go even further to drive forward productivity.

Top-performing trusts, ranked in the government’s recently published league tables, will be rewarded with greater autonomy, including the ability to reinvest surplus budgets into frontline improvements such as new diagnostic equipment and hospital upgrades.

Trusts facing the greatest challenges will receive enhanced support to drive improvement, with senior leaders held accountable through performance-linked pay. The best NHS leaders will be offered higher pay to take on the toughest jobs, sending them into challenged services and turning them around.

Alongside this, the NHS will move away from national funding based on average costs to tariffs based on best clinical practice that maximises outcomes for patients.

The government is also restoring financial discipline, ending the practice of providing additional funding to cover deficits. By 2030, all trusts will move into a surplus.

The boost in productivity builds on progress already delivered through the government’s Plan for Change.

This includes cutting waiting lists by 220,000 since July 2024, delivering more than 5 million extra appointments, and recruiting 2,000 additional GPs to make it easier for patients to book appointments.

Background information

The productivity data will be published in NHS England board papers on the evening of Monday 22 September 2025.

The figure was calculated by comparing the levels of increased acute trust activity against the previous year.

NHS England estimates acute trusts increased activity by 5.8% in 2024 to 2025 compared to the previous year, while at the same time growing their costs by 3%. This suggests productivity grew by 2.7% year-on-year.

AI technology tested across 9 NHS sites has been proven to free up clinicians to spend nearly a quarter more time with patients.

The study, led by Great Ormond Street Hospital’s (GOSH) Innovation Unit (https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/researchgosh-led-trial-of-ai-scribe-technology-shows-transformative-benefits-for-patients-and-clinicians-across-london/), assessed the impact of an AI-scribing tool, TORTUS, which automatically transcribes consultations and drafts summarised clinical notes for clinicians to review.

Over 17,000 patient encounters were evaluated across a diverse range of sites including hospitals, GP practices, mental health services and ambulance teams.