Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average hospital waiting time was for NHS patients in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK in each year since 2005.

The information is not available in the format requested. Information has been published since August 2007 on the numbers of patients still waiting within 18 weeks and more than 18 weeks to start consultant-led elective treatment at the end of each month. Information has also been published about average median waiting times to start consultant-led elective treatment nationally since August 2007 and locally since April 2009. This is provided in the attached table for National Health Service commissioning organisations and regions which most closely match those requested. Health is a devolved matter in the rest of the United Kingdom.