Allergies: Waiting Lists

(asked on 6th February 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce waiting times for patients who require allergy tests.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 14th February 2023

Specialist allergy services are commissioned by NHS England Specialised Commissioning in line with the published service specification. While no specific assessment has been made of the adequacy of waiting times, the service specification sets out standard referral processes and equity of access to services, as well as highlighting the response time and prioritisation targets. There are regular review meetings between regional commissioning teams and providers to ensure compliance with service standards.

To reduce waiting times more generally for elective services, the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years.

We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A proportion of this funding will be invested in workforce capacity and training and we have committed to invest £5.9 billion for new beds, equipment and technology.

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