Community sector

Waiting list (data for January 2026) 

• The total reported community services waiting list in England decreased to 1.14 million in January. This is compared with 1.06 million in January 2025.  
  
  
• The total number of CYP waiting for community services was 312,203, compared with 289,261 in January 2025.  
  
  
• There were 831,470 adults on the community waiting list, compared with 769,457 in January 2025. 

Long waits (over 52 weeks) (data for January 2026) 

• There were 81,401 CYP waiting for 52 weeks or more, equating to 26.1% of all CYP on the community waiting list. This is compared with 57,421 (19.9%) in January 2025.  
  
  
• There were 30,635 CYP waiting for 104 weeks or more, which is 9.8% of all CYP on the community waiting list. This is compared with 10,550 (3.7%) in January 2025. 
  
  
• There were 8,790 adults waiting for more than 52 weeks for treatment, compared with 10,468 in January 2025. This makes up 1.1% of the adult waiting list (1.36% in January 2025).  

Referrals and contacts (data for December 2025) 

• There were 1.69 million referrals received to community services (as shown in Figure 4), compared with 1.57 million referrals in December 2024.   
  
  
• A total of 8.71 million care contacts were reported across all submitters, compared with 8.47 million in December 2024.   

Figure 5
Total referrals received by community services