NHS bosses to rethink constitutional targets

The body representing most NHS organisations plans to start work on rethinking the service’s national waiting time standards for “the NHS of the future”.

NHS Alliance CEO Sir Ciarán Devane said he wanted to look at what should be “the suite of top-level key performance indicators that really matter” for a service now caring for large numbers of elderly patients with long-term conditions.

Sir Ciarán said the work “might take you in directions of saying that apart from a few limited situations, frail elderly people should not be admitted to hospital, because of the risk that once they’re admitted, then getting them home again becomes more difficult”.

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Source: Health Service Journal, 30 October 2026