Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board to reduce its pathways waiting list.

We are clear that the extent of waits for treatment is unacceptable, and cutting waiting lists is a key priority for the Government. We have committed to returning by March 2029 to the NHS constitutional standard that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment (RTT).

Between July 2024 and June 2025, we delivered 5.2 million additional appointments compared to the previous year, more than double our pledge of two million. This marks a vital first step towards delivering the constitutional standard.

As an interim goal, NHS England’s Operational Planning Guidance 2025/26 has set the national ambition for 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment, with every trust expected to deliver a minimum five percentage point improvement in performance, and to reduce the proportion of people waiting over 52 weeks for treatment to less than 1% of the total waiting list.

To support this improvement across all trusts and systems, there is a robust performance management process in place. The new NHS Oversight Framework 2025/26 ensures that there is public accountability for performance and NHS England works with systems and providers to support improvement.

In coordination with the NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board, NHS England has heightened executive oversight and assurance processes in place with the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust to monitor and support recovery plans. An extensive targeted recovery plan focuses on orthopaedic mutual aid, optimising and expanding existing capacity, pathway reform, improvements to validation processes and demand management.

A new interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer have been appointed at the trust, in addition to a dedicated Executive Elective Recovery Director to drive and oversee turnaround of elective care performance.