Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to reduce waiting times for neurology appointments.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including neurology services. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity.  In addition, the autumn statement provided a further £3.3 billion in 2023/24 and in 2024/25 to support the NHS and ensure that waiting times of more than a year are eliminated by 2025.

NHS England has established a dedicated ‘Action on Outpatients’ programme to support providers and systems to accelerate new and existing initiatives to improve services and outpatient waiting times, including for neurology patients.

The Getting It Right First Time programme published a national report for neurology in September 2021. The report made recommendations on improving access to care for patients with neurological disorders, improving outpatient referrals and triaging system to reduce clinical waiting times and address variation across the NHS. NHS England is encouraging systems and providers to implement these recommendations and tailor best practice pathways according to population needs and local priorities. NHS England’s neuroscience transformation programme has worked with stakeholders to identify good practice and to improve access to services for people with a range of neurological conditions.