Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recent proposals of the Centre for Perioperative Care to address inefficiencies in the surgical pathway.

The Government welcomes the recent manifesto of the Centre for Perioperative Care and will consider its recommendations. The Government is already working with NHS England to improve perioperative care. In May 2023, NHS England published guidance in an online-only format setting out five core perioperative care requirements relating to the care of adult patients awaiting planned inpatient surgery. These measures address the key objective of identifying health needs as early as possible in perioperative pathways, and then using time on the waiting list to optimise health, which is the Centre for Perioperative Care’s ambition for ‘preparation lists’. The NHS England National Elective Recovery and Outpatients programme is working with NHS England regional teams to help oversee and support compliance and will continue to do so throughout 2024/25.