Key points
- Community services waiting lists rose in January – moving closer to peaks seen in August 2024.
- February 2025 saw a surge in long waits for community services, with the total number of waits over 52 weeks reaching a record high. This is being driven by long waits for children and young people (CYP).
- Community services saw a sharp rise in referrals in January, while care contacts hit their highest level on record.
Waiting list
- The community services waiting list has increased for the last two months, rising slightly to 1.07 million people in February 2025. It is now 6.6% larger than February 2024.
- A record high 298,530 CYP waited for community services in February, an increase of 14.4% compared to last year.
- The overall number of adults waiting for community services fell back slightly, for the fifth consecutive month, to 767,550 in February.
FIGURE 4
Community health services total reported waiting list
Long waits (over 52 weeks)
- 74,190 people (CYP and adults) were waiting for more than 52 weeks in February, increasing by 49% since last year. There have been significant increases in CYP long waits.
- Waits of over 52 weeks have more than doubled in CYP's community services since last year, there are now 64,490 CYP waiting for 52 weeks or more - the highest number recorded. Long waits for children have more than doubled since February 2024 and make up 87% of all waits over 52 weeks (adults and CYP combined). 13,170 CYP were waiting for 104 weeks or more.
- There were 9,702 adults waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment, an improvement compared to the previous month. Among them, 956 adults were waiting more than 104 weeks for treatment.
Referrals and contacts
- Referral requests rose sharply in January 2025, with 1.86 million referrals recorded - up by 19% from December. Referrals remained 11% higher than the same period last year and have increased by 57% compared to five years ago, before the pandemic (January 2020).
- A total of 9.6 million care contacts were reported across all submitters in January 2025 - the highest monthly total ever reported and a 7.6% increase since last year.
FIGURE 5
Total referrals received by community services
