Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of waiting times at Specialist Mesh Centres.

No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England advises that in the nine specialist mesh centres in England from April 2021 to October 2022, 1,913 patients were referred for treatment, 393 patients received surgery, 192 were on the surgical waiting list and 136 patients selected non-surgical treatment. The average waiting time for a first outpatient appointment in this time period was 15 weeks and the average waiting time for surgery was 23 weeks.