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 reduce waiting times for routine operations.

Reducing elective care waiting times continues to be a high priority for the National Health Service. The NHS Long Term Plan sets out the NHS priorities and reiterates the focus on increasing the amount of planned surgery year-on-year, to cut long waits, and reduce the size of hospital waiting lists.

The Long Term Plan also reinforces the NHS commitment to offer choice, including the promise of choice at 26 weeks. This will be delivered as a full rollout over the next year of the planned NHS-managed choice process, which will systematically identify 26-week waiters and contact them to offer choice for treatment at an earlier date.