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Civic pressure

Housing pressure and NHS waiting times

Official national stocks: NHS England consultant-led referral-to-treatment waits, a separately labelled Wales RTT series (different target), and England housing pressure from MHCLG / ONS — rough sleeping, social housing registers, house prices and affordability. Period, geography and source URL sit on every figure. No invented local-authority to NHS-trust join.

NHS waiting times

Consultant-led referral to treatment. England and Wales are separate health systems with different operational standards — shown apart on purpose.

NHS England waiting list

StockEngland

7.33 million

Incomplete consultant-led RTT pathways

Exact count ·
7,328,252
Unique patients (estimate) ·
6.21 million
Period ·
end of Jul 2026
Geography ·
England

This is a stock of open consultant-led elective pathways, not unique people (NHS England estimates about 6,207,073 unique patients using a Waiting List Minimum Dataset ratio of 0.847). It is not A&E, cancer waits, or mental-health waits. Completions during the month are a flow and are not the waiting-list stock.

18-week operational standard

Share of stockEngland

65.4%

Incomplete pathways waiting 18 weeks or less

Standard ·
92%
Median wait ·
12.0 weeks
92nd percentile ·
38.4 weeks
Period ·
end of Jul 2026

The operational standard is 92% of incomplete pathways waiting 18 weeks or less. 65.4% is the share of the incomplete-pathway stock, not a clinical guarantee, and not the same as Wales’s 26-week target.

Waiting more than 52 weeks

Long waitsEngland

111,379

Incomplete pathways over 52 weeks

Over 65 weeks ·
9,095
Over 78 weeks ·
1,494
Over 104 weeks ·
235
Year earlier ·
−62,027 pathways (-0.8% on the whole list)

Long-wait counts are part of the incomplete-pathway stock, including estimates for missing trusts. They are not a separate waiting list.

NHS Wales waiting list

StockWales26-week target

689,700

Referral to treatment pathways waiting to start treatment

Published as ·
published as “just over 689,700”
Within 26 weeks ·
65.0%
Wales standard ·
95% of pathways waiting less than 26 weeks
Over one year ·
97,600 (published as “just under 97,600”)
Period ·
end of May 2026

Wales uses a 26-week operational standard, not England’s 18-week standard. The two percentages are not comparable as if they measured the same target. Pathways are not unique patients. Local health boards are not joined to Watchtower council rows.

July 2026 national totals include estimates for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, Torbay and South Devon, University Hospitals Plymouth, and Cora Health MSK, which did not submit. Median and 92nd-percentile waits are from submitted data only.

The same release also quotes provisional June 2026 estimates (~698,400 pathways). Watchtower uses the May 2026 official month, not the provisional June figure.

England incomplete pathways — recent months

NHS England timeseries including estimates for missing trusts. Press notice rounds the latest month to 7.3 million; the table stores the timeseries total.

MonthIncomplete pathwaysWithin 18 weeksOver 52 weeksMedian (weeks)
Jul 20267,328,25265.4%111,37912.0
Jun 20267,272,29165.8%105,71111.9
May 20267,278,38465.6%104,73412.4
Apr 20267,218,23165.0%99,78111.9
Mar 20267,106,09165.3%94,40411.3
Feb 20267,216,20862.6%122,66813.2
Jan 20267,247,21461.5%135,65713.6
Dec 20257,290,88061.5%140,50813.4
Nov 20257,308,92861.8%156,48312.9
Oct 20257,395,44561.8%172,55613.3
Sep 20257,388,14961.8%180,32913.4
Aug 20257,403,61261.0%190,49913.5

Timeseries RTT overview including estimates · press notice released 10 Sept 2026. Snapshot fetched 14 Sept 2026.

Housing pressure

Four official series. Rough sleeping and housing registers are England stocks; house prices and affordability include a clean Wales figure. Not joined to council debt rows.

Rough sleeping snapshot

Single-night stockEngland

4,793

People estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night

Rate ·
8.2 per 100,000
Vs 2024 ·
+126 (3%)
Vs 2010 ·
+3,025 (171%)
Period ·
autumn 2025 (a single night between 1 October and 30 November)

A point-in-time stock on one autumn night — not the number of people who slept rough at any point in the year, and not statutory homelessness or households in temporary accommodation (those are different MHCLG series). Monthly management-information snapshots are a less robust series and are not used here.

Social housing waiting lists

StockEngland

1.34 million

Households on local authority housing registers

Exact count ·
1,340,527
Year earlier ·
+9,925 (0.7%)
Reasonable Preference ·
645,000
Period ·
31 March 2025

A stock of households on local-authority housing registers at 31 March — commonly called waiting lists. Qualification rules differ by council after the Localism Act 2011, so the national total is not a standardised queue. It is not council borrowing, not the flow of new social lettings, and not a count of people who will be housed this year. The social housing lettings bulletin (tenants, 2024–25) reports 645,000 of the 1.34 million households had Reasonable Preference in at least one category (48%). That is a subset of the register, not a separate waiting list.

Average house price

Monthly averageEngland / Wales / UK

£293,000

England average house price (UK HPI)

England table figure ·
£293,262
England annual change ·
1.8%
Wales ·
£213,000 (1.8%)
UK ·
£272,000 (2.0%)
Period ·
June 2026 (provisional)

ONS rounds the England average to £293,000; the England HPI table publishes £293,262. Wales and UK headlines are the ONS-rounded averages (£213,000 and £272,000). This is a monthly average of transacted prices, not what a first-time buyer pays, and not the same as the annual affordability ratio (year ending September 2025).

Housing affordability

Annual ratioEngland and Wales

7.6×

England median house price ÷ workplace-based earnings

England 2025 ·
£300,000 / £39,300
Vs 2024 ·
7.8× (significant fall)
Wales ·
6.0× (£213,000 / £35,800)
Period ·
2025 (house prices year ending September 2025)

Workplace-based earnings (where people work), not residence-based. A ratio above five is conventionally treated as less affordable. This annual ratio is not the June 2026 HPI average price, and it is not a mortgage offer.

Related to Average house price

England average private rent (PIPR): £1,451 in July 2026 (provisional), 3.8% on a year earlier. ONS — Private rent and house prices, UK: August 2026. A different series (Price Index of Private Rents) and a different month from the HPI house-price figures. Not a house price.

What this page does not do

  • No join from these national series to Watchtower council rows or to named NHS trusts / local health boards. Provider and commissioner files exist, but mapping them onto CTYUA councils would invent a geography we do not have.
  • Scotland and Northern Ireland NHS waiting times are out of this snapshot (different health systems and publications).
  • Live Table 600 is England-only. Wales social-housing waiting lists are a different collection and are not mixed in.
  • Statutory homelessness and households in temporary accommodation are published by MHCLG but omitted here to keep the housing set to four sourced cards.
  • A&E, cancer, diagnostics and mental-health waits are not RTT and are not shown.
  • Wales RTT June 2026 is labelled provisional in the same Welsh Government release; the card uses May 2026.

Methodology

  • NHS England incomplete pathways, 18-week share, long-wait counts and unique-patient estimate come from the official RTT Overview Timeseries Including Estimates for Missing Trusts (July 2026 edition). The press notice rounds the waiting list to 7.3 million; Watchtower stores the timeseries total.
  • Wales RTT is copied from the Welsh Government NHS Activity and Performance Summary (May 2026 official month). The 26-week target is not converted into an 18-week figure.
  • Housing registers are the England total from MHCLG Live Table 600 (31 March 2025 = 1,340,527 households). The lettings bulletin rounds this to 1.34 million.
  • Rough sleeping, UK HPI / ONS house prices, PIPR rents and ONS affordability ratios are curated from the cited statistical bulletins — not scraped from news league tables.
  • Refresh: python3 scripts/build_health_housing.py --redownload after each NHS England RTT month, Live Table 600 revision, rough-sleeping snapshot, UK HPI bulletin, or ONS affordability release. Update curated constants in the script when bulletin figures change.

Snapshot curated into this app 14 Sept 2026. Council outstanding borrowing remains on Councils (a different stock). NHS England spending as an annual flow is on public finances. Also see Sources and methodology.