Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding the Government plans to make available for integrated care systems to manage their elective waiting lists.

The National Health Service (NHS) published the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ on 8 February 2022. To support this plan, the Government will make an additional £8 billion available from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to enable the NHS to carry out more checks, scans, outpatient appointments, operations and other procedures, with a significant amount invested in staff. Funding will be allocated to local areas for elective recovery, with further details on payment mechanisms set out as part of the planning guidance for local systems. Integrated Care Systems will each have plans for their population and for the resources required to recover elective and cancer services. They will work with providers to agree and deliver their plans. Regional and national teams will work together to monitor delivery of plans and provide prompt interventions to drive improvement as required.