At Chijos News, we focus on how UK policies and public services affect everyday life for Africans in the diaspora, particularly Nigerians who rely heavily on the NHS for timely, affordable healthcare. New findings released by NHS England suggest that targeted intervention, smarter working and focused investment are finally starting to shift one of the health service’s biggest challenges: long waiting lists.
A new report on the Further Faster 20 (FF20) programme reveals that specialist NHS teams helped cut waiting lists in participating areas three times faster than the national average. Thousands of patients across England have already benefited, with many receiving treatment sooner and returning to work faster, easing pressure on families and the wider economy.
The FF20 programme sent experienced “crack teams” of NHS experts into 20 hospital trusts with the highest levels of economic inactivity. Their task was straightforward but ambitious: reduce waiting times, increase hospital activity and help more people recover quickly enough to rejoin the workforce. Rather than imposing solutions from the outside, these teams worked alongside local NHS staff to redesign how planned operations and outpatient services were delivered.
These findings come one year after the government launched its Elective Reform Plan, backed by record NHS funding and aimed at restoring timely access to care. Since July 2024, England’s overall waiting list has fallen by more than 225,000, despite 28.4 million referrals during the same period. For patients who have spent months or even years waiting for procedures, the impact is being felt in very real ways.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said the progress shows the reform plan is delivering on its promises. He noted that by doing things differently, from deploying specialist teams to extending opening hours at Community Diagnostic Centres, patients are being seen quicker and supported back into work and everyday life. While he acknowledged that fixing the NHS will take time, he stressed that patients are already starting to feel the difference.
NHS England’s National Director for Planned Care, Mark Cubbon, highlighted the relentless efforts of NHS staff, saying the figures show patients are not only getting faster access to care but also support to return to employment. He added that the past year has seen major improvements in delivering tests and scans closer to home, while cutting unnecessary appointments and inefficient processes that previously slowed treatment.
One of the standout features of the FF20 programme has been how hospitals rethought the way they run services. Teams introduced high-flow theatre lists, sometimes described as “Formula 1 style” surgery, where operating theatres run continuously, allowing surgeons to complete more planned procedures in less time. Outpatient services were also streamlined, with many patients sent straight for tests rather than being booked into multiple preliminary clinic visits.
The impact has been striking at local level. South Tees created 4,000 additional appointment slots simply by optimising how outpatient clinics were run. Bolton reduced wasted appointment slots by 20 per cent through better capacity management, while East Lancashire boosted nurse productivity by 14 per cent after introducing AI-powered dictation for pre-operative assessments.
According to the NHS England evaluation, published today, waiting lists in FF20 areas fell by 4.2 per cent between October 2024 and October 2025, compared with a 1.4 per cent reduction nationally. For working-age adults, the improvement was even more dramatic, with waiting lists falling more than five times faster than in the rest of the country. This has played a key role in helping people get treated sooner and return to work, supporting both household incomes and economic growth.
The Elective Reform Plan, launched in January 2025, aims to restore the NHS target that 92 per cent of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by the end of the current parliament. Alongside the FF20 programme, the government and NHS have expanded evening and weekend clinics, opened new and larger community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs, delivered millions of extra GP appointments and recruited thousands of additional frontline staff, supported by smarter use of technology.
As a result, NHS productivity has continued to grow above target, with a 2.7 per cent increase between April 2024 and March 2025, followed by a further 2.5 per cent growth in the first five months of the current financial year. This suggests the health service is not only increasing capacity but also using public funding more efficiently.
Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive of NHS Providers, said it was encouraging to see innovation and hard work across NHS trusts translating into faster treatment, shorter waits and improved productivity, despite record demand, industrial action by resident doctors and ongoing financial pressures.
Royal College of Surgeons of England President Tim Mitchell also welcomed the findings, noting that long waits carry heavy human costs, including prolonged pain, loss of independence and time away from work. He said the initiative shows what is possible when targeted support and investment are matched with a workforce ready to do more, provided the right facilities and staffing are in place.
For many in the Nigerian and wider African diaspora living in the UK, access to timely NHS care is essential, not just for health but for the ability to work, support families and contribute fully to society. These latest figures offer cautious optimism that, while challenges remain, focused reform is beginning to turn the tide and get the NHS working better for patients once again.
