Crack teams get patients off waiting lists at twice the speed
Source: gov.uk (2025-03-16)

Sending top doctors into areas of highest economic inactivity is busting through the backlog.

- Targeted approach is cutting waiting lists twice as fast as rest of the country
- Plans to roll scheme out further as government delivers on its Plan for Change
A new government initiative to send top doctors to support hospital trusts in areas where more people are out of work and waiting for treatment is cutting waiting lists faster, new data shows.

In September, Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting sent in crack teams spearheaded by top clinicians to NHS hospitals serving communities with high levels of economic inactivity. The teams support NHS trusts to go further and faster to improve care in these areas, where more people are neither employed nor actively seeking work, for reasons including ill health.

Latest data from October 2024 to January 2025 shows waiting lists in these areas have, on average, been reduced at more than double the rate of the rest of the country, falling 130% faster in areas where the government scheme is in action than the national average.

A total of 37,000 cases have been removed from the waiting lists in those 20 areas, averaging almost 2,000 patients per local trust.

The teams of leading clinicians are introducing more productive ways of working to deliver more procedures, including running operating theatres like Formula One pit stops to cut down on wasted time between operations.

The scheme has delivered huge improvements in areas of high economic inactivity.

They include:

the Northern Care Alliance and Manchester Foundation Trust - where a series of ‘super clinics’ with up to 100 patients being seen a day in one-stop appointments where patients can be assessed, diagnosed and put on the treatment pathway in one appointment. These include employment advisers on site to support patients with any barriers to returning to work. Those that require surgery are then booked to ‘high flow theatre’ lists such as those at the Trafford Elective Surgery Hub

Warrington and Halton - which has run super clinics for gynaecology delivered at weekends, with one-stop models reducing the need for follow-up appointments.

East Lancs Hospitals Trust - which has focused on streamlining diagnostic pathways and increasing capacity for echocardiography, or heart scans, reducing the waiting list for these from around 2,700 patients to around 700 - with all patients having their scan within 6 weeks

Data shows the number of people unable to work due to long-term sickness is at its highest since the 1990s. The number of adults economically inactive due to ill health rose from 2.1 million in July 2019 to a peak of 2.9 million in October 2023. The decision to send the crack teams to these 20 trusts first was based on the government’s aim to get people back to health and back to work, helping to cut the welfare bill.

Following the success of the programme, the government has confirmed similar crack teams will be rolled out to additional providers this year to boost NHS productivity and cut waiting times further.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said:

The investment and reform this government has introduced has already cut NHS waiting lists by 193,000, but there is much more to do.

By sending top doctors to provide targeted support to hospitals in the areas of highest economic inactivity, we are getting sick Brits back to health and back to work.

I am determined to transform health and social care so it works better for patients - but also because I know that transformation can help drag our economy out of the sluggish productivity and poor growth of recent years.

We have to get more out of the NHS for what we put in. By taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, reforming the way surgeries are running, we are cutting waiting lists twice as fast at no extra cost to the taxpayer.

As we boost NHS productivity and deliver fundamental reform through our Plan for Change, you will see improvements across the service in the coming weeks and months.

The new data comes after the government confirmed the abolition of NHS England, centralising the way that healthcare is delivered, cutting bureaucracy and improving care outcomes for patients up and down the country.

The government inherited waiting lists of over 7.6 million last July, and rising numbers of patients waiting months and years to get the treatment they need to get back to their jobs.

Thanks to immediate action taken by the government - including ending the strikes and investing more in the NHS - overall waiting lists have fallen for the last 5 months in a row, dropping by 193,000.

The targeted teams are the latest success delivered by the government as it continues its fundamental reform of the NHS through the Plan for Change.

Soon after taking office, it confirmed an extra £1.8 billion to deliver extra elective activity across the country.

This helped create an extra 2 million elective care appointments between July and November last year - delivering on the government’s manifesto pledge 7 months early.

Other plans to increase elective care productivity and cut waiting lists include:
- opening community diagnostic centres 12 hours a day, 7 days a week
- revolutionising the NHS App so patients can receive test results and book appointments
- increasing use of the independent sector to improve patient choice
Background to the Further Faster programme

Data shows that waiting lists fall faster in ‘Further Faster’ programme areas (FF20) compared to non-FF20 areas. Between October 2024 and January 2025 waiting lists fell by:
- around 37,000 in FF20 trusts (from 1.42 million to 1.38 million) - a drop of 2.6%
- around 65,000 in non-FF20 trusts (from 5.73 million to 5.67 million) - a drop of 1.1%
The FF20 teams worked with the clinical teams in the trusts to look at where they needed most help to tackle waiting lists in their trust, with the expertise and insight from the clinicians - with a particular focus on high-flow theatre lists and one-stop clinics.

The FF20 trusts are:

South Tees Hospitals Foundation Trust

The Royal Wolverhampton

Sandwell and West Birmingham

The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust

Rotherham Foundation Trust

The Dudley Group Foundation Trust

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Foundation Trust

Bolton Foundation Trust

Hull University Teaching Hospitals

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Foundation Trust

East Lancashire Hospitals Foundation Trust

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals

Wirral University Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust

Manchester University Foundation Trust

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust

Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust

Warrington and Halton Hospitals Foundation Trust