Dear Chris,
Siobhan Tuohy-Smith to Chris Roebuck: Compliance review of NHS England’s Referral to Treatment (RTT) statistics
We have completed a compliance review of NHS England’s Referral to Treatment (RTT) statistics against the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics. The review considered whether these accredited official statistics continue to meet the standards of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.
Based on the findings, we conclude that the RTT statistics continue to comply with the Code and should retain their accredited official statistics designation. We welcome NHS England’s ongoing commitment to improving accessibility and insight through the development of the new dashboards, and its early work to prepare for the updated Code of Practice for Statistics (Code 3.0). The review also identifies five areas where further action is needed. These include continuing to enhance to RTT dashboards, strengthening proactive user engagement, improving the visibility and coherence of supporting guidance and enhancing clarity on UK comparability. We also highlight the need for greater transparency to support users understanding of unreported removals.
We note that NHS England is already progressing work in several of these areas, and we welcome its commitment to address the recommendations. We expect NHS England to publish further information on unreported removals and steps to reduce them by April 2026, and to provide a wider public update on progress against all recommendations by August 2026.
I am grateful for the constructive engagement from your team throughout this review and look forward to receiving updates on progress against the recommendations.
I am copying this letter to Chris Gibbons, Deputy Director of Elective, Cancer and Diagnostic Analysis.
Yours sincerely
Siobhan Tuohy-Smith
Assessment Programme Lead