Performance management · Waiting time
Defining an operational waiting-time measure
An NHS team needed one repeatable measure of how long cases waited for assessment across a changing operational workflow.
The reporting need
What the organisation needed to understand.
Several timestamps could plausibly mark the start or end of a wait. Cases could also move between levels, leave and return, or follow different routes into assessment.
Each interpretation produced a different answer. A useful measure had to reflect how the service understood the wait, deal openly with exceptions and remain stable when the workflow changed.
Work undertaken
How the reporting requirement was addressed.
- 01
Mapped the operational journey and agreed the event that best represented the start and end of the wait.
- 02
Set clear rules for movement, re-entry, missing markers and changes in the way assessments were started.
- 03
Designed reporting that showed typical waits, long waits and the full shape of performance, with definitions and caveats kept visible.
Operational use
One documented definition
- The reporting provided one transparent and repeatable waiting-time measure.
- Variation hidden by a single average became visible and investigable.
- The documented method became a reference for other complex measures.
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