Community sector

Waiting list (data for December 2025)

• The total reported community services waiting list in England had been falling for several months, but increased to 1.15 million in December. It also remains higher than December 2024 (1.04 million).  
  
  
• The total number of CYP waiting for community services was 323,826, which is higher than in December 2024 (269,548). 
  
  
• There were 824,131 adults on the community waiting list, higher than December 2024 (774,736). 

Long waits (over 52 weeks) (data for December 2025) 

• There were 81,414 CYP waiting for 52 weeks or more, equating to 25.1% of all CYP on the community waiting list. This is compared with 47,503 (17.6%) in December 2024. 
  
  
• There were 28,503 CYP waiting for 104 weeks or more, which is 8.8% of all CYP on the community waiting list. This is compared with 9,175 (3.4%) in December 2024. 
  
  
• There were 8,954 adults waiting for more than 52 weeks for treatment, compared with 10,403 in December 2024. This makes up 1.1% of the adult waiting list (1.34% in December 2024). 

Referrals and contacts (data for November 2025)

• There were 1.71 million referrals received to community services (as shown in Figure 4), 0.9% higher than November 2024.
  
  
• A total of 8.74 million care contacts were reported across all submitters, down by 2.8% compared to the same period last year. 

Figure 4
Total referrals received by community services