Improving planned care and reducing NHS waiting times in North West London: your views

This spring, NHS North West London is engaging with residents, health and care professionals, community groups and stakeholders to develop a new strategy for planned care. Planned care refers to a non-emergency health care, such as hospital outpatient appointments or planned surgery.

To help improve waiting times, fair access and patient experience, we need to consider the changing needs of people in North West London, the increasing number of people who are seeking care, and how we tackle the unfair differences in waiting times and care experiences for people from different communities.

From conversations with local residents and health and care professionals, we have already heard some suggestions of how we might be able to reduce waiting times, improve care and help people to stay well while they are waiting for treatment. These include:

• Connecting GPs directly with specialists so they can seek advice on a patient’s condition more quickly – potentially avoiding waits for hospital appointments
• Providing more regular updates on a patient’s position in the waiting list, so they know what to expect and can make plans around this
• Allowing patients to select their preferred appointment time from available slots rather than being allocated a set time
• Providing more support for people while they are waiting for surgery, so they can keep well and support a faster recovery
• Making better use of technology. This can help improve efficiency and free up time for specialists so they can see more people.

Between February and April 2025, we are speaking to residents, health care professionals and other partners from across North West London to hear more about their experiences of planned care, and how they think positive improvements can be made. Please note that this work does not cover mental health care, which is being addressed separately.