About
About HospitalWaits
Free, independent comparison of NHS waiting times — built by a doctor, for patients and GPs.
Why this tool exists
7.6 million people are on NHS waiting lists. Under the NHS Constitution, every patient has the legal right to choose which hospital they're referred to for their first outpatient appointment. But most patients don't know this right exists — and those who do have no easy way to compare their options.
NHS England publishes detailed waiting time data every month for every hospital and specialty in England. But the raw data is locked in spreadsheets with hundreds of thousands of rows. HospitalWaits makes that data accessible — to patients, GPs, journalists, and anyone who wants to understand NHS waiting times.
What it shows
- Waiting times for every NHS hospital by specialty, refreshed monthly from NHS England RTT data
- Distance from your postcode to each hospital, computed via PostGIS on real coordinates
- Trends — 12-month median wait per trust × specialty
- Right to Choose guidance — explained in plain English on every results page
- Private alternatives — editorial listings showing publicly published guide prices alongside NHS results
- Coming next: CQC ratings + Friends & Family Test satisfaction scores
Who built it
This tool is built by Dr Mustafa Ghafouri, a medical doctor and data scientist with over ten years of experience working with NHS data, including roles at NHS Digital, the MHRA, and senior data architecture / data science positions across healthcare. He is an NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Fellow and Director of Doctor Data Ltd.
HospitalWaits is a personal project to improve patient access to NHS waiting time information. It is not a commercial product of any NHS organisation.
Data sources
| Dataset | Source | Update |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting times (RTT) | NHS England | Monthly |
| Hospital locations | NHS Organisation Data Service | Ongoing |
| Postcode lookup | postcodes.io | Quarterly |
| CQC + FFT | Care Quality Commission, NHS England | V1.1 |
All data is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Currently displaying data through February 2026.
Independence
- Independent — not affiliated with or endorsed by NHS England, NHS Digital, or any NHS organisation
- Free for patients — and always will be
- Built on open data — every figure links to its source
- Transparent methodology — see /methodology
Contact
Dr Mustafa Ghafouri
Doctor Data Ltd
mustafa@doctor-data.co.uk
Journalists: I'm happy to provide data, charts, or commentary on NHS waiting times. Get in touch.