Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set out his ten-year-plan to reform the NHS in England, which includes a shift from hospitals to neighbourhood health hubs.
The NHS App will also be expanded, with plans for patients’ full health records to be available on demand.
Labour’s other key health manifesto pledge was to meet the 18-week waiting time target – the benchmark measure for the NHS, referring to when patients start their treatment.
Data – Colchester Hospital, part of ESNEFT, is below average for waiting lists (Image: Newsquest) The East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) aims to have at least 60.1 per cent of patients being referred within 18 weeks by March 2026.
The latest data for April 2025 shows that just 55.2 per cent of patients were seen within 18 weeks – up 0.1 per cent since November 2024.
The national average is higher with 59.7 per cent of patients waiting less than 18 weeks.
This is up 0.6 per cent from November 2024.
By March 2026, the Government wants to see this rate rise to 65 per cent with the national target being 92 per cent by March 2029.
Here is the full breakdown by department at ESNEFT with the percentage of patients who were seen within 18 weeks in April 2025:
- Ear nose and throat service – 48.1 per cent
- Ophthalmology service – 73.5 per cent
- Plastic surgery service – 49.9 per cent
- Cardiothoracic (only 7 cases)
- General internal medicine – 73 per cent
- Gastroenterology service – 65.7 per cent
- Cardiology service – 74.6 per cent
- Dermatology service – 67.6 per cent
- Respiratory medicine service – 60.3 per cent
- Neurology service – 54.7 per cent
- Rheumatology service – 89.1 per cent
- Elderly medicine service – 97.7 per cent
- Gynaecology service – 48.6 per cent
- Other medical services – 73.3 per cent
- Other paediatric services – 68.2 per cent
- Other surgical services – 95.2 per cent
- Other ‘other’ services – 81.6 per cent
Localised – ESNEFT chief executive Nick Hulme said Clacton Hospital could help with the waiting lists (Image: Warren Page/Pagepix) Nick Hulme, chief executive at ESNEFT, said: “Our teams are working hard to see and assess everyone waiting for treatment in the communities we serve.
“We review all the patients on our waiting lists regularly and hold extra outpatient clinics and operating theatres wherever possible.
Mr Hulme said the trust has plans in place to deliver the national standard for patient waiting times.
This includes the new Essex and Suffolk Elective Orthopaedic Centre (ESEOC) at Colchester Hospital which opened in November 2024.
Mr Hulme said the centre was a “fantastic resource to treat patients from the wider area who need orthopaedic procedures”, with an aim of 10,000 operations each year.
The centre will also create additional capacity which will see a further reduction in waiting times.
He added: “Patients will also benefit from developments at Clacton Hospital, with the forthcoming opening of a new urgent treatment centre alongside the community diagnostic centre at the site and the new maternity birthing suite that opened in June.”
There is also a new urgent treatment centre and accident and emergency department at Ipswich Hospital.
Speaking about the NHS 10-year-plan, Mr Hulme said: “We want people to be in the best place for them, to ensure they maintain their independence rather than relying on hospital care, which is the most expensive and often the most inappropriate for patients who don’t need to be there.
“The ten-year plan will help bring radical change to healthcare. Thinking about prevention, the digitisation of healthcare and most importantly moving care from hospitals into the community will allow us to run hospitals in a much more appropriate safer way for our patients.”