Patients in Gloucester are seeing shorter waits for several common hospital procedures as Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust reports progress in clearing treatment backlogs. Recent data from the My Planned Care portal shows that average waiting times for colorectal, ear, nose and throat, and cardiology care have all decreased.
As of 8 May 2026, the average waiting time for colorectal treatment has dropped to 17 weeks. Patients requiring ear, nose and throat services now face an average wait of 23 weeks, while those needing cardiology treatment can expect to wait an average of 20 weeks. These reductions are part of a broader effort by the trust, which serves the community through facilities including Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, to manage its total waiting list, which currently sits at just under 77,500 people.
The trust has made significant strides in tackling the longest waits, successfully reducing the number of people waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment by over 90 percent between March 2024 and the end of the 2024/25 financial year. This means the number of long-waiters has fallen from 3,000 to fewer than 250. To help achieve these improvements, the organisation has increased its capacity by working with the independent sector, focusing specifically on specialties such as orthopaedics, ear, nose and throat, dermatology and gynaecology.
Local leaders have recognised the impact of these changes. Alex McIntyre, the Member of Parliament for Gloucester, has praised the local health service for its work, noting that the progress being made in reducing waiting times for planned procedures is making a real difference for local residents.
This performance contributes to the trust’s wider standing within the national health service. In January 2025, 67.4 percent of patients in the county were treated within 18 weeks, a figure that remains above the national average of 58.9 percent. The trust, which employs approximately 8,000 staff, was also ranked 17th out of 134 national health trusts in September 2025, placing it among the highest-performing large acute trusts in the country.
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