Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons waiting time targets have not been included in the NHS Long Term Plan.

The clinically-led review of standards was announced by the Prime Minister in June 2018. The review is considering the appropriateness of operational standards for physical and mental health relating to planned, unplanned urgent or emergency care, including cancer.

The Long Term Plan provides a platform upon which innovative models of patient care can and are being developed. In that context, the National Health Service’s National Medical Director has been working with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Healthwatch England and many others to consider what matters most to patients, on the clinical issues with the current target regime, and what NHS staff believe will help them provide the best quality care for patients.

The review will report its interim findings in the spring of 2019, after which any recommended changes will be carefully field tested across the NHS.

In addition, NHS England’s ‘Operational and Planning Guidance for 2019/20’ sets out deliverables against key performance areas and the Government expects the NHS to deliver these actions set– in full – as key steps towards fully recovering performance against core access standards.