Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to establish waiting time targets for (a) elective surgery and (b) A&E waiting times.

Patient access standards are already established for routine consultant-led elective surgery referrals and for accident and emergency (A&E) waiting times. These are described in The Handbook to The NHS Constitution which states patients have the right to start consultant-led treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral for non-urgent conditions and a pledge that there should be a maximum four-hour wait in A&E from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge. The Handbook is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplements-to-the-nhs-constitution-for-england