Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce waiting times and (b) improve patient outcomes in NHS opthamology services.

We are taking action to recover elective services, including ophthalmology, by working towards the targets set out in the Elective Recovery Plan and providing the National Health Service with record levels of staffing and funding. We plan to transform the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity, including through dedicated and protected surgical hubs, focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. These hubs will initially focus on driving improvement in six high volume specialties, one of these being ophthalmology.

Most recent published data from NHS England shows the average wait time for referral to treatment for ophthalmology was 11.7 weeks, below the national average of 14.4 weeks.

NHS England is currently considering how eye care services should be commissioned to ensure future sustainability. This includes looking at how more patients can be triaged and managed in the community, freeing up capacity for those that need face to face specialist care.