Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to help ensure that the NHS has capacity to deal with future infection outbreaks and deliver routine elective surgery.

The Department continues to provide additional funding, drive innovation, and supporting the National Health Service to deliver both the recovery of elective services and deal with future infection outbreaks and wider pressures. It is however difficult to ensure there will be no disruptions during future infection outbreaks especially over winter.

Operational plans are in place to better manage emergency care demand and capacity. It includes the largest ever seasonal flu vaccination programme over winter, COVID-19 booster vaccines for priority groups to reduce infection risk and a 10-point plan for emergency care, which includes a range of actions across urgent, primary and community care.

To deliver elective services, the department has committed £2 billion this year to start to tackle backlogs and a further £8 billion across the following three years to increase elective activity and transform services, to improve productivity and expand capacity. At the Spending Review in October 2021, we also announced £5.9 billion capital investment to further support elective recovery, diagnostics, and technology over the next three years. This investment is key to increasing capacity and productivity.

As we have throughout this pandemic, we continue to work closely with independent sector to make the most effective use of the capacity and services available, including over winter and if needed during any future outbreaks.