Orthopaedics waiting times, by hospital

The longest median orthopaedic wait in England is at Mid And South Essex NHS Foundation Trust: about 29 weeks. The national median is 15 weeks.

Ranked by median wait, NHS RTT, May 2026.

A longer wait does not mean worse care. A trust can appear near the top because it treats more complex cases, serves a more deprived population, or is a regional specialist centre taking the referrals others can't. This table measures one thing only — the median wait for the whole orthopaedic pathway — and says nothing about the quality of treatment, outcomes, or how ill the patients are. Read it as a map of where the queues are, not a judgement of any hospital. It ranks acute NHS trusts only — community and mental-health trusts run MSK triage and refer surgery out, so their figures are not comparable and are excluded (method below).

Ranked by median wait for the orthopaedic pathway (NHS treatment function C_110), NHS England Referral to Treatment (RTT), May 2026. Median, mean, and the 1-in-5 figure (the 80th percentile) are derived from the published RTT week-band data. Acute NHS trusts only — community and mental-health trusts run MSK triage and refer surgery out, so their orthopaedic figures are not comparable to an acute surgical trust's and are excluded (7 this month). Provider type: NHS England Oversight Framework (Sep 2025). Trusts with fewer than 30 patients on the pathway are excluded from the ranking (2 excluded this month) — too few to rank one hospital against another reliably. 119 trusts are ranked.