Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 24 February 2025 to Question HL4889 on Knee Replacements: Waiting Lists, what specific steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for (a) knee replacements and (b) other orthopaedic operations.

As of August 2025, the waiting list for Trauma and Orthopaedics, which includes patients waiting for knee replacements and other orthopaedic operations, stood at 866,426. Performance against the 18-week referral to treatment standard was 58.8%.

The Department is taking a range of specific steps to reduce waiting times for these procedures. To continue to expand and enhance surgical capacity, we have allocated £1.65 billion in capital funding in 2025-26 to support NHS performance across secondary and emergency care. As of September 2025, 123 surgical hubs are operational across England and we are committed to ramping up the number of hubs over the next three years, so more operations can be carried out. These dedicated and protected surgical hubs focus on high volume low complexity surgeries, with the majority of hubs undertaking trauma and orthopaedics procedures.

We are improving efficiency within existing capacity. Theatre utilisation within elective surgical hubs has shown a steady improvement from around 79% in August 2024 to an average of around 81% in August 2025, enabling a greater number of procedures to be undertaken across all specialties.

As part of the Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, we are also optimising perioperative care to ensure patients are ready for surgery sooner. This includes encouraging patients waiting for surgery to engage in prevention health measures such as smoking cessation and weight management, ensuring more patients are assessed as fit to proceed to surgery, and therefore leave the waiting list faster.

This Government is committed to putting patients first and tackling waiting lists is a key part of our Health Mission. These measures have already contributed to increased elective activity. We exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra 2 million operations, scans, and appointments in our first year, having delivered 5.2 million more appointments. This marked a vital First Step to delivering on the commitment that 92% of patients will wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, in line with the NHS constitutional standard, by March 2029.