Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that elective surgical procedures are able to recommence safely and efficiently after the peak of the covid-19 outbreak.

With evidence now suggesting that we have reached the peak of this wave of COVID-19, and with the National Health Service well-placed to provide world-leading care for those who do still have the virus, we have started to reset services, including non-urgent elective care. These services had previously been suspended as part of ensuring sufficient capacity was in place to manage the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The approach to this will be flexed at local level according to capacity and demand in different parts of the country, and will be gradual, over the coming weeks. We will work on the principle that the most urgent treatments, including mental health support, should be brought back first and this will be driven by local demands on the system.