The NHS is set to miss key targets to shorten waiting times for help at A&E, cancer care and planned hospital treatment, leaving millions of patients facing persistently long delays.
The health service in England will not deliver a series of milestone improvements in its performance that ministers demanded it achieve by the time the fiscal year ends on Tuesday, a Guardian analysis of the NHS’s most recent data has found.
The lack of progress raises questions about pledges made last week by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to get key waiting times back on track by the end of the parliament in 2029.
The findings will concern Keir Starmer, the prime minister, given Labour’s commitment to “get the NHS back on its feet” and the public’s strong desire to see an end to the routinely long waits for care that crept in from 2015.
The gloomy picture on waiting times also comes despite the NHS handing hospitals an extra £120m in recent weeks to fund a pre-deadline “elective sprint” – of extra appointments and more operations – intended to bolster its chances of delivering the necessary improvements by 31 March.
Source: The Guardian, 29 March 2026
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