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 reduce waiting times for gynaecology assessments.

The ‘Delivery Plan for Tackling the COVID-19 Backlog of Elective Care’ outlines how the NHS will bring down waiting times across all elective services. The plan does not prioritise specialties but commits to eradicate all waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025, except for in the case of patient choice.

To support this plan and tackle waiting lists, including those in gynaecology, the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to drive up and protect elective activity. We are also increasing capacity, including for gynaecological surgery, through our surgical hubs, delivered by the Getting It Right First Time ‘High Volume Low Complexity’ programme.