Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment (1) they, and (2) NHS England, have made of the availability of non-COVID-19 related urgent care services; what steps they are taking to ensure that such services are resumed; and when can patients expect face-to-face appointments to resume. [T]

We have continued to deliver the most urgent treatments, such as emergency and urgent cancer care, throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.

With evidence suggesting that we are passing the peak of this wave of COVID-19, and with the National Health Service well-placed to provide world-leading care for those who do still have the virus, we are bringing back non-urgent services that had been temporarily suspended. We will work on the principle that the most urgent treatments, including mental health support, should be brought back first and this will be driven by local demands on the system. The approach will be flexed at local level according to capacity and demand in different parts of the country, and will be gradual, over weeks.

In the absence of face-to-face appointments, primary and secondary care clinicians have been asked to stratify and proactively contact their high-risk patients to educate on specific symptoms and circumstances needing urgent hospital care and ensure appropriate ongoing care plans are delivered.

Doctors will always have the safety of patients at the centre of any decisions they make.