Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance (a) her Department and (b) NHS England has given on whether socio-economic background of the patient can be a material consideration by the NHS when prioritising patients for elective care; and what use the NHS makes of social value judgments when prioritising.

All waiting lists are subject to clinical prioritisation at a local level. The National Health Service triages patients waiting for elective care, including surgery, so that the order in which they are seen reflects clinical judgement of need as well as taking into account overall wait time.