West Kent's Hospital Trust Beats National Average on Waiting Lists, But A&E Still Under Pressure

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW), which runs Maidstone Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury and serves the whole of West Kent, is performing noticeably better than the national average on planned treatment waiting times, according to NHS England's official monthly statistics - though its A&E departments remain under real pressure.

As at the end of July 2026, 50,730 people in MTW's care were waiting for planned (non-emergency) treatment, up 5% from 48,306 a year earlier. But of those waiting, 73.0% had been waiting less than 18 weeks - itself an improvement on the 70.4% recorded a year before, and well ahead of the England-wide average of 65.3%. The median wait across the trust was 10.9 weeks, against an England average of 12.0 weeks.

Long waits, once a major national concern, are now close to eliminated at MTW: just 2 people were waiting over a year for treatment at the end of July, and nobody had been waiting more than 65 weeks. Nationally, 108,263 people were still waiting over a year. MTW also comes out ahead of its nearest Kent neighbours - East Kent Hospitals (55.2% seen within 18 weeks), Medway NHS Foundation Trust (58.0%) and Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (60.1%) all lag behind West Kent's trust on this measure.

The picture in A&E is more mixed. In August 2026, MTW's emergency departments saw 76.2% of patients within four hours, edging out the England average of 75.0% and comfortably ahead of East Kent Hospitals (70.1%) and Medway (72.6%), though behind Dartford and Gravesham (80.3%). More strikingly, 272 patients that month waited more than 12 hours between a decision being made to admit them and actually being admitted to a bed - the widely watched "trolley wait" measure that tends to reflect how much pressure a hospital's beds, not just its front door, are under.

Taken together, the figures suggest a trust managing its planned care backlog notably better than most of the country, while still facing the same emergency care strain affecting hospitals nationally.

None of this means MTW is problem-free - a 12-hour trolley wait is a genuinely bad experience for the patient involved, and no waiting list of 50,000-plus people is going to leave everyone satisfied, so complaints about the NHS locally, as everywhere, aren't going away. But set against the national picture - and against Kent's other hospital trusts - the figures suggest West Kent patients are, on these measures at least, starting from a considerably better position than the constant national debate about the NHS might imply. Source: NHS England - RTT Waiting Times statistics, NHS England - A&E Attendances and Emergency Admissions statistics