Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the NHS waiting list.

The Government is committed to tackling the National Health Service waiting lists and is working closely with NHS England to deliver the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’.

Capacity has been increased by expanding surgical hubs focussed on providing high volume low complexity surgeries and community diagnostic centres (CDCs) which will deliver up to 17 million tests by March 2025. The Government has also stood up an Elective Recovery Taskforce which will look into maximising the use of independent sector capacity free to patients at the point of use.

We have committed to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to boost elective recovery. As part of the autumn statement, we are also investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the NHS in England, enabling rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels.