Gera Regional Treatment Rank — Methodology

Data source

Computation steps

1. 1

   Download the NHS file

   Download the NHS England Consultant-led RTT Waiting Times "Incomplete Commissioner" Excel file for the reference month. Open the "Region" sheet, which contains one row per NHS commissioning region × treatment function combination.

2. 2

   Extract median wait per (region, specialty)

   For each (region R, specialty S) pair, extract the "Average (median) waiting time (in weeks)" column value directly from the NHS file. Gera uses the NHS-published median figure without recomputation — it is the week band where the cumulative distribution crosses 50%, linear-interpolated by NHS England. No estimates are introduced.

3. 3

   Rank regions for each specialty

   For specialty S, collect medianWaitWeeks(S, R) for each of the 7 NHS England regions. Sort ascending (shortest wait first). Assign GRTR(S, R) = rank position (1-based). Regions where medianWaitWeeks is null in the NHS file are excluded from the ordered set and flagged "data not available". Ties in median wait weeks are broken by % within 18 weeks (descending).

4. 4

   Compute the regional spread

   For each region R for specialty S: deltaVsBest(S,R) = medianWait(S,R) − medianWait(S, rank1_region). This is 0 for rank 1 and positive for all others, showing how many additional weeks a patient in that region waits vs the best-performing region.

5. 5

   Monthly re-date

   NHS England publishes RTT data monthly (usually 6–8 weeks after the reference month). Gera re-runs steps 1–4 on the new release and updates all GRTR values, the page dateModified stamps, and the llms.txt section. The formula is unchanged; only the input data changes. Current release: April 2026.

Self-verification — 5 sampled values

The following 5 values can be independently verified against the NHS England RTT Commissioner file (Region sheet) for April 2026. Look up the row for the region code + treatment function and confirm the “Average (median) waiting time” column matches.

Source: NHS England Incomplete Commissioner RTT, April 2026. Median wait figures are NHS-published (not re-derived). GRTR ranks are computed by Gera as per steps 1–4 above.

Coverage

• 7 NHS England commissioning regions (codes Y56–Y63): London, South West, South East, Midlands, East of England, North West, North East and Yorkshire.
• 23 NHS treatment functions (specialties), covering all functions in the NHS England national RTT release for April 2026.
• 23 specialties have at least one region with median wait data — all are covered in this cluster.
• National total: 7,123,980 patients waiting, median 11.9 weeks, April 2026.

Limitations

• The GRTR reflects the median wait for a regional patient population; it is not a prediction for any individual patient, who may wait less or more depending on clinical priority, specific trust, and available capacity.
• NHS patients are normally referred to providers within their local ICB. The GRTR shows which regions have shorter waits; exercising the NHS right to choose a provider in another region requires a discussion with your referring clinician.
• The data is Commissioner basis (what ICBs commission), not Provider basis. A region may commission care from providers partly outside its geographic boundary.
• Regions with no median data for a specialty in the NHS file are excluded from that specialty's rank and flagged “data not available” — this is a data coverage issue in the source, not a Gera estimate.