Key Summary
- The teams collaborated with local staff to transform the delivery of planned operations and outpatient appointments.
- Experts performed ‘Formula 1 style’ surgery with operation theatres working continuously.
- In many NHS trusts, additional appointment slots were created through improved capacity management.
Specialist NHS teams under the Further Faster 20 (FF20) programme helped cut waiting lists three times faster than the national average in areas with high levels of economic inactivity, and helped people get back to work.
Crack teams of experts were sent to 20 hospital trusts across England with the highest levels of economic inactivity to cut the waiting list, and this benefitted thousands of patients.
The teams collaborated with local staff to transform the delivery of planned operations and outpatient appointments.
This includes high-flow theatre lists, where experts perform ‘Formula 1 style’ surgery with theatres operating continuously, allowing surgeons to complete planned operations more quickly.
They also streamlined outpatient processes by cutting unnecessary appointments and multiple clinic visits.
In South Tees, 4,000 extra appointment slots were created by optimising the way it ran outpatient clinics, while Bolton slashed wasted slots by 20 percent through better capacity management.
East Lancashire deployed AI-powered dictation for pre-operative assessments, which boosted nurse productivity by 14 percent.
The NHS England evaluation found that from October 2024 to October 2025, the waiting lists in FF20 areas fell three times faster (4.2 percent) than the rest of the country (1.4 percent).
For working-age adults, it was more than five times faster, helping them get back to work.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said, "By sending crack teams into hospitals to supercharge care, opening more community diagnostic centres longer and later, and cutting wasteful spending, we’re turning the tanker round and patients are starting to feel the difference.
"It will be a long road, but together with NHS staff, we are fixing our health service and making it fit for the future and beyond."
The health service will study the findings and replicate it in other NHS trusts.
Meanwhile, the government also marks one year since the launch of the elective reform plan aimed at cutting waiting lists.
Since July 2024, the waiting list is down by more than 225,000 despite 28.4 million referrals.
NHS England’s national director for planned care Mark Cubbon said, "NHS staff have been relentless in their efforts to bring waiting times down, and today’s figures show patients are starting to see the benefits - not only getting the care they need faster but also being supported back into the job market.
"The last year has seen the NHS take great strides to deliver more tests and scans closer to home, and cut unnecessary and time-consuming appointments and processes, so that people can get the surgery they need faster."
