Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England are now invited to express their interest in a share of up to £450,000 of funding for locally delivered initiatives and interventions which can rapidly reduce waiting times for community health services.
In a collaboration with NHS England’s Community Health Services team, GIRFT’s improvement programme for community waiting times is offering targeted support combined with up to £150,000 of funding, helping ICBs who are most challenged with their waiting time performance to achieve short-term waiting list recovery alongside long-term sustainable service improvement.
The non-recurrent funding is intended to support high-impact interventions that can produce measurable improvements by March 2027, such as intensive waiting list validation, super-clinics or weekend recovery sessions.
How to apply
Applications for funding can be made via this expression of interest (EOI) form.
The deadline for bids is 11 September 2026, with allocation decided by end of September. Support programmes with the selected ICBs are expected to begin in October 2026.
Click here for full information on the bidding criteria >
Queries should be emailed to england.girftcommunitywaitinglists@nhs.net
The NHS England Medium Term Planning Framework (MTPF) for 2026/27 to 2028/29 sets targets for community waiting times, for 78% of patients to be waiting less than 18 weeks by the end of 2026/27, rising to 80% by the end of 2028/29. It also requires ICBs and community health service providers to develop plans during 2026/27 to eliminate community waits of more than 52 weeks.
The new GIRFT offer supports delivery of the ambitions set out in the MTPF, working with ICBs to:
- increase the proportion of patients waiting less than 18 weeks for community health services;
- develop and implement plans to eliminate waits exceeding 52 weeks; and
- improve patient flow across community services through whole-system improvement.
Participating systems will receive tailored GIRFT support, including senior clinical and operational leadership, analytical support, the development of a recovery plan, and implementation coaching.
