Health Care Waiting Time statistics

Technical differences between the four UK countries

Statisticians in all four home nations have been working together to produce technical documents in the following areas:

  • Accident and Emergency (A&E)
  • cancer
  • diagnostics
  • referral to treatment
  • inpatients
  • outpatients

These documents bring together a comparison of:

  • what is measured in each country
  • how the statistics are similar
  • how the statistics are different

These documents are used by statisticians, analysts, journalists, policy makers and researchers to understand the similarities and differences in waiting times for each country.

The documents follow a standard format. The technical detail has been simplified to allow a broader range of users to use the information. But some technical and specialist information is needed to provide a comprehensive comparison.

Because of accessibility requirements the waiting times documents cannot be provided directly on this website. You can ask for a copy of any of the publications by emailing GSS.Health@ons.gov.uk.

These publications are available as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets:

  • UK Accident and Emergency (A&E) waiting times
  • UK cancer waiting times
  • UK inpatient, outpatient and referral to treatment waiting times
  • UK diagnostic waiting times

Technical documents last updated: March 2022

Page last updated: March 2022