Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for the NHS to meet the target for referral to treatment in less than 18 weeks.

The Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2018-19 continues to set NHS England an objective to maintain and improve performance against core patient access standards. This includes a clear expectation that the statutory referral to treatment standard should be met.

The Government expects NHS England and NHS Improvement to deliver the actions in the NHS Planning Guidance for 2018-19 as key steps towards fully recovering performance against these standards.