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 the potential merits of removing delivery targets for NHS services during the 2021 covid-19 national lockdown.
We are committed to supporting National Health Service providers and commissioners to release capacity to help the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included NHS England and NHS Improvement have reduced the usual reporting that is required for official statistics. However, there are no plans to remove patient access standards as set out in the NHS Constitution for the purpose of responding to the pandemic.